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The Story My Doggie Told to Me 




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5o«ie 
fipe> tinges to^et^ei* ! 


The Story My Doggie 
Told to Me 



By 

Ralph Henry Barbour 

Author of “The Crimson Sweater,” “The Half- 
Back,” “Tom, Dick and Harriet,” etc. 


With Illustrations by 

John Rae 


New York 

Dodd, Mead and Company 
I9H 


PZ 10 

■ 3 



Copyright, 1914, 

By DODD. MEAD AND COMPANY 



OCT 24 1914 

©CI.A387184 

y 


Lnip 


TO GRETCHEN 

in the hope that she will 
read it to her children and that they 
may profit by its lessons, this 
book is dedicated by 
her Master 



CONTENTS 


PART ONE 

WHEN I WAS A PUPPY 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Play Days 3 

II What We Learned 11 

III Puppy Troubles 18 

IV When I Ate My Collar 25 

V How I Dug for a Badger 34 > 

VI The Frog Who was a Toad .... 48 

VII The Cross Duck 50 

VIII The Old Lady Who Didn’t Like Dogs . 61 

IX The Little Boy from the City ... 69 

PART TWO 

WHEN I GREW UP 

I How We Went Hunting 87 

II How We Spent Christmas .... 98 

III More Lessons 106 

IV A Visit to Jack 115 

V The Turtle 128 

VI At the Dog Show . . . . . . .180 

VII The Strange Man 148 

VIII How I Was Stolen 158 

IX In the Animal Store . . . . . . 162 

X Back Home Aqain 175 






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ILLUSTRATIONS 


We had some fine times together . 

. Frontispiece 

She used to think they were to chase 

Page 1 2 

... And thought now they were 
just to look at 

“ 13 

Most of the batter went on Freya . 

Facing Page 14? 

He had to help William do all sorts 
of things 

“ “ 20 

We learned to stand on our hind legs 

“ “ 30 

He was what the Family called a 
“bird dog” 

Page 4?2 

All of a sudden I backed right over 
the side of the bank into the 
brook 

Facing Page 52 

I chewed that rubber cat until it 
stopped squeaking and then 
tried the duck 

Page 105 

I had never seen one before . 

Facing Page 124? 

At the dog show 

Page 14?2 

Alfred took me to bed with him . 

Facing Page 14?6 

Jim 

Page 161 

Oh, it was a funny, queer place . 

Facing Page 166 

He lives in the fourth tree . 

“ “ 178 



PART ONE 


WHEN I WAS A PUPPY 



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CHAPTER I 


PLAY DAYS 

Bow! 

I always begin a story that way. It is 
what you Two-Legged Folks call “making 
your bow.” With us dogs it means “Hello” 
and “How do you do” and “Good morning” 
and — and lots of other things too. And 
sometimes it means “Look out!” You see, we 
have so many ways of saying it! 

Perhaps some day 111 tell you how to know 
just what we mean when we say “Bow!” — 
like that — sort of quick and friendly; and 
what we mean when we say it slow and gruff, 
way down in our throats. 

And then there’s “Wow!” too. “Wow” is 
different from “Bow.” And “Bow-wow” is 
still different. But this isn’t telling my story, 
is it? 


3 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


Of course, you haven’t said you wanted me 
to tell you my story, but I’m almost sure you 
do. I think you’ll like it, because I am a very 
good story-teller — for a dog. And, although 
I am not quite three years old, I have seen a 
lot of things in my day. 

You won’t mind if I wag my tail now and 
then, will you? It is very hard for a dog to 
tell a tale without wagging. Some folks say 
a dog talks with his tail. He doesn’t though ; 
not really. He just uses his tail the way you 
Two-Legged Folks use your hands, to make 
others understand better what you are saying. 

When you tell a story you should always 
start right at the very beginning, and that is 
what I am going to do. 

The first thing I remember was when I was 
about two weeks old. I’m sure you can’t re- 
member when you were two weeks old. I 
think that is very clever of me, don’t you? It 
shows what a fine memory I have. I was lying 
4 


PLAY DAYS 


m a sort of cage made of criss-cross wires. 
There was sawdust on the floor. There were 
four of us in all, for I had two sisters and one 
brother. My mother’s name was Gretchen 
and my father’s name was Fritz. I am 
named after my father. He had two or three 
other names besides, but they’re very hard to 
say, being German. You see my father and 
mother were both born in Germany and 
brought to this country when they were very 
young, and so, of course, they spoke German 
very nicely. But they never taught it to me. 
I suppose there wasn’t time. There are so 
many, many things a puppy has to learn. I 
didn’t see much of my father when I was a 
tiny puppy. Sometimes he came to the cage 
where we lived and licked our noses through 
the wires, but he was a very busy dog and 
had lots of things to attend to. 

My mother was very beautiful, with the 
loveliest soft brown eyes and the longest, silki- 
5 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


est ears and quite the crookedest front legs you 
ever saw. (You see, in my family crooked 
front legs are much admired.) We all loved 
her very dearly, but I am afraid we caused her 
a lot of trouble. But she was very fond of us 
and very proud of us. Sometimes I wished 
she wasn’t so careful about keeping us clean, 
for lots of times when I wanted to play with 
my brother and sisters I couldn’t because she 
had to wash me all over. You see, puppies 
don’t like being washed much more than you 
do; and I heard you making an awful fuss this 
morning! 

We lived very happily in the cage for several 
weeks. We ate and slept and played, but 
most of all we ate and slept. At first it must 
have been funny to see us trying to walk, for 
our legs were so weak that they just sprawled 
out under us when we wanted to use them. 
But it wasn’t long before we could run and 
jump as much as we pleased. I was the big- 
6 


PLAY DAYS 


gest and the strongest of us all, and I think 
my mother was every bit as fond of me as 
she was of my two sisters and my brcrther, but 
it did seem to me as if I got most of the punish- 
ment. Maybe I was the naughtiest one, too! 

As we grew older and stronger our mother 
used to leave us alone for a little while every 
day, and we didn’t like that at all at first. We 
used to whine and cry and feel very lonesome 
until she came back. But she always did come 
back, and pretty soon we got to know that she 
would, and so we didn’t mind so much. We 
had some lovely frolics, we puppies. We used 
to make believe that we were very cross, and 
tumble each other over in the sawdust and bite 
each other’s ears and legs and growl such funny 
little growls! 

A man named William looked after us. He 
wore leather gaiters. They tasted very well. 
Mother said he was a coachman. He was very 
kind to us and brought us things to eat and 
7 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

water to drink and petted us a lot. Then there 
was another man who only came to see us a few 
times. We didn’t like him so well. He was 
a Doctor and smelled of medicine. He came 
to see us once when my sister Freya was sick 
and once when I had an awful pain in my in- 
sides. That was later, though, after we were 
out of the cage and running around in the 
yard. It was when I ate the harness soap. 
Mother told me afterwards that it was a mis- 
take to eat any kind of soap. I think she was 
right. 

Then, of course, there was the Master, and 
the Mistress, and, best of all, the Baby. She 
wasn’t exactly a baby, because she was almost 
two years old, but every one called her the 
Baby. We all loved her very much. She 
used to take us up one by one and kiss us on 
our noses and call us “Booful dogums” and 
hug us. Sometimes she hugged so hard it 
hurt, but we never let her know it. She had 
8 


PLAY DAYS 


golden hair and blue eyes and two little fat 
red cheeks and was always laughing. Her real 
name was Mildred. The Master was a very 
big man, so big that I could only see to the 
tops of his riding-boots when I was little. He 
had a very deep, gruff voice and called us 
‘‘Those little rascals But we knew he didn’t 
mean it and we liked him. But we liked the 
Baby best of all, and after her the Mistress, 
who was the Baby’s mother. She was quite 
small for a grown-up and had such a nice voice 
that we loved to hear it and would all go run- 
ning to the front of the cage or the yard fence 
when she came. 

The Family — we called the Master, the Mis- 
tress and the Baby the Family — lived in the 
country in a beautiful white house with green 
blinds that stood on top of a little hill and had 
trees and fields all around it. There was a 
pond, too, and a brook that ran out of it. 
That’s where the ducks lived. Ducks are very 
9 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

funny things. Later I’ll tell you something 
about them. There was a stable, as well, and 
outside the stable was a yard fenced in with 
wire netting, and in the corner of the yard 
was what they called the Kennel. That was 
where I was born. The yard was quite large 
and after we were allowed to run around in it, 
we had a fine time. There was so much to see 
from it: the house and the duck-pond and the 
country road, with people going by that had 
to be barked at, and the place where William 
washed the carriages when the weather was 
fine, and many other things. Also, there were 
squirrels in the trees, and birds, too. And 
there was Ju-Ju. 


10 


CHAPTER II 


WHAT WE LEARNED 

Ju-ju was a cat. She was grey, like smoke, 
and had a bushy tail and long hair and yellow 
eyes. I don’t think yellow eyes are very 
pretty, do you? None of us ever liked Ju-ju 
very much, although we soon got to respect 
her. She was very vain of her long hair and 
thick tail and used to spend hours doing noth- 
ing but washing herself. Cats are very lazy, 
I think, and waste too much time on them- 
selves, Once I asked Mother what cats were 
for and she sighed and said she used to think 
they were to chase but she had changed her 
mind and thought now they were just to look 
at. Mother had a place on her nose like a 
scratch where the hair never grew and some- 
times IVe wondered whether Ju-ju made it. 

11 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 



When we first got 
out into the yard 
Ju-ju used to come 
A and jump on top of 
one of the fence- 
posts and look down 
at us just as though 
we were funny and 
strange. That used 
to make us very 
angry and we would 
bark and jump at 
the post for the 
longest time. But 
of course we 
couldn’t reach her 
and after awhile she 
would blink and 
blink at us and then 
go to sleep up there ! 
Cats are very an- 


WHAT WE LEARNED 


noying. They’re almost as bad as ducks! 

We were born in the Spring and lived in the 
yard until we were four months old. Then 
my brother, whose name was Franz, and one 
of my sisters, whose name was Franzchen, left 
us. They went away off to live in the city 
and Freya and I were quite lonely at first, and 
our mother felt very badly about it. But she 
told us that they had gone to live with some 
nice, kind people and would be very happy, and 
after that we didn’t feel so badly about it. 

After Franz and Franzchen left us we were 
no longer kept in the 


Kennel yard, but were 
allowed to go anywhere 
we pleased — except the 
house. We weren’t al- 
lowed in the house, but 
sometimes we got in. 
When we did we 


scampered straight for 


13 



THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

the kitchen. The first time we did it Cook had 
a tin dish filled with cake-batter in her hand 
and when we ran at her and barked and 
jumped up on her she was so surprised and 
scared that she cried “Saints presarve us!” and 
dropped the dish. Most of the batter went on 
Frey a and she ran out as quick as she could go, 
much more frightened than Cook, and I after 
her. We had a fine time licking the batter off. 
It was nice and sweet and sticky and lasted 
all day. Father was quite angry with us, but 
Mother said “Puppies will be puppies.” 

After that it was very hard to get in the 
kitchen, and when we did get in Cook would 
drive us out with a broom. Of course we tried 
not to go and made believe we didn’t know 
what she meant when she cried “Shoo!” and 
“Scat!” We would run under the tables and 
into the pantry and quite often she would have 
to coax us out with pieces of meat or something 
nice. It was very exciting. If we thought 
she really meant to hit us with the broom we 
14 


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WHAT WE LEARNED 


would lie on our backs with our feet in the 
air and pretend we were awfully frightened. 
Then Delia, who was the maid and a great 
friend of ours, would say “Oh, the poor little 
dears. Don’t you dare hit them, Mary Mc- 
Guire !” Then we would have a piece of cake 
each and Delia would pet us and put us out- 
side. 

F ather was a very busy dog and had a great 
many things to look after. He always went 
to drive with our Mistress and sat very straight 
and fine beside William on the front seat. 
Then, too, he had to help William do all sorts 
of things, like wash the carriages and feed the 
chickens and ducks and cut the grass and rake 
the leaves. He must have been a great com- 
fort to William. 

Mother had her paws full looking after us 
most of that summer and so she was not able 
to help much with the work. Of course she 
kept watch and taught us to, and we soon 
learned who to bark at and who not. When 
15 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

the man from the butcher’s came Mother al- 
ways made it a point to be very polite to him. 
She wagged her tail and sniffed his boots and 
followed him around to the kitchen door. He 
smelled very nice. Sometimes he gave us 
small pieces of meat and we were always glad 
to see him. But when a tramp or a pedlar 
came Mother barked and the hair stood up all 
along her back. We soon learned to do the 
same and tramps didn’t very often come much 
farther than the gate. 

Of course we learned a great many other 
things too. Such as to stand on our hind legs 
and beg when we wanted anything and not get 
under the feet of the horses and keep away 
from the carriage wheels. Once a wheel went 
over the end of my tail and it hurt a good deal 
and I crawled into a stall and cried. Mother 
came and told me I was too old to cry and 
that it would teach me to keep out of the way. 

Another thing we learned was not to jump 
up on the Baby. We did it because we loved 
16 


WHAT WE LEARNED 

her and wanted to lick her face, but she always 
tumbled over. That was because she only had 
two legs and was no fault of ours. Once when 
she tumbled she struck her head against some- 
thing hard and cried dreadfully. We licked 
her face as hard as we could to comfort her, 
because that is what Mother always did to us 
when we were hurt, but it didn’t seem to do 
her much good. Then William came running 
up and cuffed us pretty hard and picked Baby 
up. I don’t think he should have punished us, 
but maybe he didn’t understand. After that 
we didn’t do it any more. 

Another thing we soon learned was to let 
Ju-ju alone. One day, soon after we were al- 
lowed to go where we liked, Freya and I came 
across Ju-ju in the kitchen yard. She was 
fast asleep and we thought it would be great 
fun to jump at her and bark. So we did it 
and she woke up awfully quick and scratched 
me on the nose and chased Freya half-way to 
the stable. Cats can’t take a joke. 

17 


CHAPTER III 


PUPPY TROUBLES 

We learned a good deal about what was good 
to eat and what wasn’t, too. Once Delia left 
a tin pan filled with some whitish stuff on the 
back steps and I ate quite a lot of it before 
she came out and found what I was doing. 
When she did she cried “Cook! Cook! One of 
the Puppies has eaten the starch!” Of course 
I went right away, as I didn’t want to have 
any trouble about it, and pretty soon I felt 
very funny inside and crawled into a stall 
where it was quiet and dark. But William 
found me after a while and made me swallow 
something that didn’t taste at all nice and 
pretty soon I felt better. I didn’t think it was 
very kind of Delia to tell William what I had 
done, but maybe it was all for the best, because 
18 


PUPPY TROUBLES 


until he made me swallow the nasty medicine 
I was pretty sure I was going to die. Starch 
and soap taste all right but they aren’t good 
for puppies. I found that out. 

It seems that we all have to learn a lot of 
things by what Mother calls “sad experience.” 
Like bees. Bees look very much like flies but 
they’re diff erent. Once Freya and I saw some 
bees going in and out of a tiny hole in the 
ground back of the stable. They were very 
large bees and growled. We wondered why 
they went into the hole and so we scratched at 
it to And out. While we were doing it quite 
a lot of bees came out and Freya gave a yelp 
and began to paw at her nose. She looked so 
funny that I laughed at her and asked why she 
did it. Then I gave a yelp and forgot all 
about Freya. Those bees were very angry 
and sat down on us wherever our hair was thin, 
and every time they sat down they scratched. 
We didn’t stay there long, I can tell you ! We 
19 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

ran as fast as we could run, but the bees flew 
right along with us and chased us way down 
to the duck-pond. By that time I had flve 
scratches and Frey a had four and they hurt a 
good deal and swelled up. We licked the 
scratches and whined and after a while we 
rolled over in the mud at the edge of the pond 
and that made them feel better. But they 
didn’t stop hurting for a long time. After 
that if a bee came buzz-buzzing around us we 
always made believe we didn’t see it. But we 
got up very quietly and moved away. 

Then there are balls. Some balls are nice 
to play with and chew on. They are made of 
rubber. William had one and he used to 
throw it, and Freya and I, and sometimes 
Mother and Father, too, would scamper after 
it and see who could get it and bring it back 
to him. If Freya got it I always took it away 
from her, because I am bigger and stronger 
than she is. Besides, she’s only a girl dog! 

20 



He had to help William do all Sorts of things 



PUPPY TROUBLES 

Once Freya found the ball in the harness room, 
where it had dropped off a shelf, and so she 
took it out under a tree and chewed on it until 
there was a hole in it. Then she wanted to see 
what was in the hole and so she tore the ball 
all to pieces. There wasn’t a thing in it. She 
ate some of the pieces and that afternoon the 
Doctor came and stayed quite a long time and 
Freya was very sick. William got another 
ball, but Freya would never go near it. 

At the side of the house toward the orchard 
there was a lawn where the Family played a 
game they called croquet. They had mallets 
and a lot of difF erent coloured wooden balls and 
they made the balls roll by hitting them with 
the mallets. Once Freya and I were there and 
we chased the balls. The Master laughed at 
us and said we mustn’t do it. But he didn’t 
really care, and the Baby, who was there with 
Nurse, clapped her hands and thought it was 
fine fun. So did we. We would run at the 
21 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


balls and bark at them and try to pick them up 
in our mouths. But we couldn’t because they 
were too big. The Master and Mistress 
laughed and laughed at us. Then I saw a ball 
rolling along very fast and I made believe it 
was a rat and ran for it as hard as I could go. 
But when I tried to bite it it wouldn’t stop but 
kept right on rolling. And so I rolled too. 
I rolled several times and when I found my 
feet I hurried off with a terrible pain in my 
head. Rubber balls and wooden balls are very 
different, like flies and bees. 

About that time we had our first collars. 
Mine was black and Freya’s was brown. Wil- 
liam said that was so people could tell us apart. 
I thought it was very silly of him because we 
didn’t look at all alike. I was bigger and, if 
I do say it myself, much finer looking. But 
that is what he said. The collars had little 
round brass tags on them and on the tags were 
numbers. They were quite like the collars 
22 


PUPPY TROUBLES 


that Father and Mother wore, only a great 
deal smaller, and we were very proud of them. . 
William put a strap from Freya’s collar to 
mine and then snapped a leash on to the strap 
and said “Come on.” I trotted right along, 
but Freya sat down and wouldn’t budge an 
inch. So, of course, I had to pull her all the 
way to the house. It was very hard work for 
me, and Freya didn’t like it much, either. She 
howled all the way up the drive and William 
just laughed at her. I was quite ashamed of 
her for acting so. The Master and Mistress 
and the Baby came out to see us and I tried to 
put a good face on it by laughing too, but 
Freya just howled and howled! Girl dogs are 
very silly sometimes! Then the Master said: 

“Take the leash off, William, and see what 
they’ll do.” 

So he did and I ran up to the Mistress and 
Freya tried to run toward the stable. I wasn’t 
going to have that, so I dragged Freya after 
23 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


me and the Baby was between us and the strap 
upset her into the flower bed. I was sorry 
about it, but I thought we had better not stay 
there any longer, so I turned and ran as hard 
as I could, pulling Freya after me, toward the 
orchard. The orchard is quite a large place 
and one needn’t be caught there unless one 
wants to. But Freya, of course, had to spoil 
it all. When we came to a tree she went on 
the other side of it and the strap held us there. 
I told her to come around my side, but she 
just whimpered and tugged at the strap and 
paid no attention to what I said. Of course 
I wasn’t going to give in to her whim, so I 
pulled and pulled and would have pulled her 
around the right way at last if William hadn’t 
come up just then and caught us. We got a 
cuffing, which was all Freya’s fault for being 
so obstinate. 


24 


CHAPTER IV 

WHEN I ATE MY COLLAR 

After that William put the strap on us every 
day for a while and we got used to it. It 
was all right as soon as Freya understood that 
she was to go the way I wanted to go. But it 
took her some time to do it. Freya is very 
stupid at times. About a week after I got my 
collar it was the cause of much pain to me. 
The Baby took it off one day and laid it on 
the ground. After she had gone I went back 
and found it. There is something about 
leather that I like. I didn’t mean to do any 
harm to the collar, but it tasted very good and 
so I closed my eyes and chewed and chewed 
and chewed. Freya came and watched me and 
asked me to give her some. 

‘‘You’ve got a collar of your own,” I 
growled. “Go away.” 


25 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

“All right/’ she said. “But you’ll catch it. 
Just you wait!” 

She went off to bark at Ju-Ju, who was 
asleep on a window-sill, and I thought of what 
she had said. I looked at the collar. It was 
a very sad looking collar. There wasn’t much 
left except the brass tag. Frey a was right ; I 
would catch it if any one saw it. So I took 
what was left of it and dug a hole in a flower- 
bed and buried it. Not ten minutes after that 
the Mistress came out and called me. I made 
believe I didn’t hear her, but it did no good, 
for she kept on calling me and so I had to go 
to her. When I got near her I rolled over on 
my back and whined. 

“Why,” she said, “you funny dog! I’m not 
angry with you, even if you didn’t come as soon 
as you should have. You’re a nice puppums 
and — why, where’s your collar?” 

I didn’t say anything, of course. Instead I 
pounced on a twig and shook it and ran around 
26 


WHEN I ATE MY COLLAR 

with it in my mouth. I thought perhaps she 
would forget about the collar. But she didn’t 
even smile. 

“Naughty Fritz!” she said. “What have 
you done with your collar?” 

Frey a came up and looked at me in a way 
which said: “There! Now you are in for it! 
And I’m glad, because you were selfish and 
wouldn’t give me any.” And then she trotted 
over to the Mistress with her tail curled up 
very proudly as much as to say: “See what a 
good dog I am! I haven’t lost my collar!” 

“You wait till I catch you,” I growled. 

Then the Baby came out and the Mistress 
said: “Look, Baby, at what a naughty, bad dog 
Fritz has been. He’s lost his nice new col- 
lar.” 

Baby laughed and gurgled. “Collar!” she 
said. 

“Yes, dear, and see how ashamed he looks. 
Naughty dog!” 


27 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

“Mild’ed looked it off,” said the Baby. 

“You took it off? Oh, you shouldn’t have 
done that, dear,” said the Mistress. “What 
did you do with it?” 

“Tooked it off!” said the Baby, and clapped 
her hands. 

By that time William had come up, with a 
rake in his hands, and the Mistress told him 
about it. William scratched his head, which 
is what he always does when he tries to think 
very hard. 

“Where were you when you took it off, 
dear?” asked the Mistress. 

The Baby toddled across to the lawn and we 
all followed her. I pretended to be very much 
surprised when we found that the collar wasn’t 
there. 

“Are you sure this is the place, dear?” asked 
the Mistress. 

The Baby nodded hard. “Mild’ed tooked 
off collar !” she cried and looked very proud of 
28 


WHEN I ATE MY COLLAR 

herself. I hunted all around, but couldn’t find 
anything but a small stone. So T took that to 
the Mistress, but she just tossed it away. 
Freya chased it. William scratched his head 
some more. 

‘‘If she took it off him, mum,” he said, “it’s 
gone by now. Sure, he chews up everything 
he finds, he’s that de-struct-ive, mum.” 

I didn’t know what “de-struct-ive” meant, 
but I didn’t like the sound of it. 

“Oh, I hope not,” said the Mistress, looking 
at me very hard. I turned my head away and 
made believe I didn’t hear. Freya wagged 
her tail and trotted off to the flower bed. I 
watched her and growled. 

“Well, perhaps we’ll find it,” said the Mis- 
tress. “You’d better look around, William.” 

“Yes, mum,” said William. Then he cried 
“Hi, there! Stop that!” and ran over to the 
flower bed where Freya was digging. By the 
time he got to her she had the collar in her 
29 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

mouth and was holding it out to him, wagging 
her tail. 

‘‘Here it is, mum,” called William. “And 
all chewed up, mum, just like I said, mum!” 

I didn’t wait to hear any more, hut very 
quietly slipped away from them and ran for the 
stable. But William found me. He dragged 
me out by the scruff of my neck from behind a 
pile of flower-pots and showed me the collar. 
Then he — but I don’t like to think of what he 
did. It was very painful. After he had gone 
I cried myself to sleep behind the flower-pots 
and slept quite a while. And when I woke 
up again I didn’t come out until I was sure 
that William had gone to his dinner. I was 
very hungry, too, but I was afraid to go near 
the house. So I went off to the meadow and 
dug up a bone I had buried a long while be- 
fore. I heard them calling me to come to 
dinner, but I didn’t go. I hoped they would 
be sorry they had treated me as they had. 

30 











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t5-' f % . , ' , * ' Jj ^ 








WHEN I ATE MY COLLAR 


After a while, though, they stopped calling 
me. So I chewed on my bone, which was very 
good but a little too dry. Still, when you’re 
very hungry most any bone tastes good. After 
that I felt much better and set off to find 
Frey a. I met my father in the stable yard 
and asked him where she was, and he said she 
was in the kitchen. 

“Delia is giving her gingerbread because she 
found your collar. If you go up there perhaps 
they’ll give you some, too.” 

“I guess I don’t want any,” I said. 

“You don’t deserve any,” said Father. 
“After this you will know better than to eat 
your collar.” 

I went on toward the house and lay down 
behind a bush and waited. After awhile 
Freya came out looking very pleased with her- 
self. She had a piece of cake in her mouth and 
went over to the orchard to bury it because she 
had had so much already she couldn’t eat it. 

31 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

I followed her, keeping away from the house, 
and went up to her very quietly while she was 
digging a hole. When she saw me she dropped 
the cake and tried to run, but I got her. . . . 

Afterwards I ate the cake. 

Of course Freya told Mother that I had hurt 
her. She’s such a tattle-tale! When I went 
back to the stable Mother wanted to punish 
me, but Father said: “No, Freya deserved 
what she got. She should not have told on 
Fritz.” So Mother said we were both very 
bad children and we must go to the Kennel and 
stay there until we could behave. So we went. 
After a while Freya crawled over to me and 
licked my ear and said she was sorry. I just 
growled. So then she licked the other ear and 
said she was sorry again, and I forgave her and 
we made it up and went off together to the 
pond to hunt frogs. 

A day or two later William came with an- 
other collar and wanted to put it on me, but I 
32 


WHEN I ATE MY COLLAR 

ran as fast as I could and hid behind the flower- 
pots again. I don’t know why I always went 
there when I wanted to hide, because William 
always found me right away, just as he did this 
time. I whined a little when he pulled me out, 
hut he patted me and rubbed my neck and said 
he wasn’t going to hurt me. 

“Look at the flne new collar I have for you,” 
he said. “Hold still now till I get it on.” 

So I held still, as still as I could for trem- 
bling, and he put it around my neck and 
buckled it. 

“There, now,” he said. “Aren’t you the 
proud puppy? Sure, it looks flne on you. 
Run along now and show it to your father and 
mother. But don’t you be eating it up, mind !” 

Just as though I would! Why, I’ve hated 
the taste of collars ever since! 


33 


CHAPTER V 


HOW I DUG FOR A BADGER 

Next door to us was a dog named Jack. 
There was a wide field between our house and 
Jack’s and so he lived quite a way from us. 
But he used to come over to our place pretty 
often and after we got big we went over to see 
him. Jack and Father were great friends and 
used to go hunting together. Jack was a 
pointer and the first time I saw him I asked 
Mother what sort of an animal he was, because 
as he was so different from us I didn’t think 
of his being a dog too. He had very long legs 
and was white with brown spots, one on each 
side of his head and one on each side of his 
body and a little one where his tail began. He 
was dreadfully big, ten times as big as Father, 
and I was afraid of him at first. But I need 
34 


HOW I DUG FOR A BADGER 

not have been, for he was a very nice, kind 
dog. 

He was what the Family called a “bird dog.” 
When his Master went out with a gun to hunt 
partridges or grouse Jack would go ahead and 
scent the birds in the grass or bushes, and then 
he would stand very still, with his tail pointing 
straight out behind him and his nose pointing 
straight out in front of him, and his Master 
would know that there were partridges ahead 
and say “Hie on!” Then Jack would creep 
on very quietly and all of a sudden the birds 
would fly up in the air and his Master’s gun 
would go hang-bang! and then there would be 
partridges for dinner. I thought it was very 
clever of Jack and wondered why Father didn’t 
hunt birds too. I asked Mother about it once 
and she said: 

“Every dog to his trade, my dear. Jack is 
a pointer and pointers were made to hunt birds. 
Your father is a dachshund and dachshunds 
35 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


were made to hunt badgers and rabbits and 
animals that live underground. Jack is a very 
fine dog, but he couldn’t dig out a badger or a 
fox or even a rabbit.” 

“Oh,” I said, “could Father do that?” 

“Of course, and so can I; and so can you 
when you grow up. That’s why you are made 
as you are. Badgers and foxes live in holes 
that they make far under the ground. The 
holes are small and they turn and twist, and 
that’s why your body is made so long and your 
legs so short; so that you can follow a fox or a 
badger into his hole.” 

“What is a badger?” I asked. 

“A badger,” said Mother, “is a very savage 
animal, much larger than your father. He 
lives underground and comes out at night to 
hunt. He has short legs and very long claws 
and a long nose. He catches smaller animals 
and eats them and sometimes he steals the 
farmer’s chickens. He has a very loose skin, 
36 


HOW I DUG FOR A BADGER 


just like yours, that is covered with fine grey 
hairs. Folks make brushes out of the hairs. 
The brush the Master lathers his face with in 
the morning when he shaves is made of badger 
hair and the brush that William used the other 
day to paint the old wagon with is made of it 
too.” 

‘T wish I could catch a badger,” I said. 
Mother smiled. 

“The first time you found one at the end of 
his tunnel you might wish differently,” she 
said. “Badgers fight hard, with tooth and 
claw, my dear.” 

“Are they more savage than foxes?” I asked. 

“Yes, hut no braver. A fox has only his 
teeth to fight with but he makes good use of 
them.” 

“I wouldn’t be afraid,” I boasted. “Are 
there any badgers or foxes about here?” 

“Foxes, yes, but no badgers that I have ever 
heard of.” 


37 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

“There are rabbits, though,” I said. “Some 
day I shall catch me a rabbit.” 

“I hope not, my dear. Rabbits are harm- 
less and they can’t fight underground. We 
have no quarrel with rabbits, we dachshunds.” 

“Then,” I said, “I’ll have to find a fox.” 

“It will be a good while before you are big 
enough to bring a fox out of his hole,” said 
Mother. “Some day, though, you shall try 
it, perhaps. You have good digging paws, 
Fritz.” 

“They — they’re awfully big,” I said. 

“As they should be, my dear. They’re made 
for digging. Each one is a little shovel, or, 
rather, a hoe. When you go into a hole that 
isn’t big enough you begin to dig. And that 
is why your front legs are made so crooked. 
If they were straight you would throw the dirt 
right under you. As they are, with your feet 
turning out, they throw the dirt on each side of 
you, out of your way.” 


38 


HOW I DUG FOR A BADGER 


“I’m glad you told me that,” I said, “be- 
cause I’ve always wondered about my legs and 
feet and been a little ashamed of them. They 
seemed so funny and crooked and big. Now 
I see that they are just as they should be.” I 
looked at my feet quite proudly. “I guess,” I 
said, “I’ll go and dig a hole somewhere.” 

“Very well,” said Mother, stretching herself 
out to go to sleep, “but keep away from the 
flower beds, Fritz.” 

So I found a fleld-mouse hole at the root 
of an apple tree in the orchard and dug and 
dug and had got down so far that only my 
tail was sticking out when Freya came 
along. 

“What are you doing?” she asked. She 
might have seen for herself that I was digging 
a hole, but she is always asking silly questions 
like that. 

“I’m digging for a badger,” I said. “Want 
to help?” 


39 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

“Oh, yes, indeed!” cried Freya. “Is there 
really a badger down there?” 

“Never you mind,” I said. “You don’t 
suppose I’d be digging a hole as deep as this 
one if there wasn’t something there, do you?” 
So I crawled out and Freya got in and went 
to work. I looked on a minute and then I 
said: 

“You don’t dig very well, do you? I sup- 
pose your feet aren’t big enough.” 

“They’re as big as yours,” said Freya, stop- 
ping to rest. 

“Then you don’t know how to use them,” I 
said. “Digging is an art, and not every 
dachshund knows how.” 

“Humph!” said Freya. “Let me see you do 
it, then.” 

So I got back in the hole and dug as hard as 
ever I could, and the dirt just flew out, I tell 
you! “There,” I said at last, much out of 
breath, “that’s the way to do it!” 

40 


HOW I DUG FOR A BADGER 


But when I looked around, would you be- 
lieve it, that silly dog had gone! And there 
was William hurrying up with a stick in his 
hand. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” he cried, 
real crossly. “Trying to dig up that apple 
tree? Get out o’ that, you pesky critter!” 

So I got out in a big hurry and ran off 
around the house and down to the stable and 
crept behind the flower-pots. For once Wil- 
liam didn’t find me and, as I was very tired, I 
went to sleep and dreamed that I had crawled 
down a long, long hole in the ground and that 
in front of me was a horrible grey badger with 
long teeth and glaring yellow eyes and great 
sharp daws. And when I tried to turn around 
and run out I couldn’t because the hole was 
too small, and when I tried to back out I 
couldn’t because the dirt had fallen in around 
me. And the badger said: “Hah, you’re the 
smart young dog who said he wanted to catch 
41 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


a badger, aren’t you?” And I said: “N-no, 
sir, that — that was my brother.” “You’re fib- 
bing,” said the badger, “and for that I shall 
eat you all up. RaowT Then he crept 
toward me and just as he reached out one great 
big paw with dozens and dozens of ugly, sharp 
claws I woke up with a howl, shivering and 
shaking! And, oh, my, wasn’t I glad to see 
those flower-pots and know that I was in the 
stable and not in a long, deep hole with a 
badger coming at me! I ran out and found 
Mother and cuddled up very close to her and 
told her my dream. She just smiled and licked 
my eyes and pretty soon I went to sleep again 
in the sunhght. 



42 


CHAPTER VI 


THE FROG WHO WAS A TOAD 

When I thought about it afterwards it seemed 
strange that I should not be allowed to dig 
holes when digging holes was what I was for. 
But every time I did it some one, William or 
the Master or the Mistress, came up and said 
“No, no, Fritz! Naughty dog! Mustn’t dig 
up the ground.” It was most discouraging. 
(Discouraging is a long word, and if you 
don’t know what it means I shan’t tell you. 
Any one as old as you are ought to know.) 
Freya never got in trouble that way. She 
didn’t seem to care much for doing the things 
I did, like digging for badgers in the orchard 
or for foxes on the front lawn. (I know now 
that I should not have expected to find a fox 
under the lawn, but then one place seemed as 
43 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

good as another.) Freya liked to stay around 
the back door and look hungry and coax Delia 
or Cook to give her things to eat. When she 
wasn’t doing that she was most always asleep 
somewhere. She got very fat and lazy and it 
was all I could do to get her to go hunting 
with me. She wasn’t much good at hunting, 
anyway. She always got tired just when the 
fun began. 

We used to go down to the pond and the 
brook and hunt frogs. Frogs aren’t good to 
eat, but it is a lot of fun chasing them. You 
creep up on them very quietly along the edge 
of the pond and try to get them before they 
can jump back into the water. Most always 
you miss them, because their eyes are in the 
wrong place, being on the top of their head, 
and they can see behind them. But some- 
times you catch one. When you do you play 
with it awhile and let it go. Freya, though, 
never would play with them. She said they 
44 


THE FROG WHO WAS A TOAD 

were ugly-looking and she didn’t like the smell 
of them. Girl-dogs are like that, though, sort 
of finicky and fussy about little things. 

You wouldn’t think that such a silly, no- 
account animal as a frog could get a decent dog 
into trouble, would you? It can, though, and 
it did. And I was the dog. I’ll tell you about 
it because it may be a warning to you some 
time when you are hunting frogs. 

One afternoon when it was very hot weather 
and we had all kept very quiet in the shade 
most of the day I got tired of keeping still 
and told Freya to get up and we’d hunt frogs. 
She didn’t want to at all, being, as I’ve said, 
fat and lazy, but I nipped her ear and made 
her. So we trotted down the road and across 
the meadow, and when we were still a long 
way from the pond I saw a frog. I told Freya 
to be quiet and then I stole ahead very softly 
and there he was in the grass just sitting and 
looking at me out of two big goggly eyes. 

45 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

He was quite different from any frog I’d ever 
seen before, being fatter and uglier and having 
more warts. 

Freya whispered, ‘‘Oh, isn’t he horrid? 
Don’t touch him, Fritz !” But I wasn’t going 
to let any frog make faces at me and so I 
jumped for him and caught him. He tried to 
get away but I took him in my mouth and shook 
him just in play, of course, and then — Oh dear, 
the most awful thing happened! The inside 
of my mouth got on fire and I dropped that 
frog and ran as hard as ever I could run to 
the pond and stuck my head right into the 
water I 

But water didn’t do much good. My 
mouth and my tongue were hot and stingy 
and smarty and felt just as though they were 
burning up. I drank water and shook my 
head and pawed my mouth and howled just as 
loud as I could. Freya ran around and asked 
what the matter was and got awfully excited. 

46 


THE FROG WHO WAS A TOAD 

I was too busy trying to stop the pain to tell 
her what was wrong. Besides, when I wasn’t 
gulping water or pawing at my mouth I was 
howling! Father and Mother heard me and 
came running down to the pond. But I 
couldn’t tell them what the matter was and 
so Freya showed them the frog. I was still 
sitting up to my neck in the pond and howl- 
ing frightfully when they came back. 

‘‘Stop making that noise,” said Father, “and 
keep your mouth in the water.” 

So I did it and whimpered instead of howled 
and my mouth began to feel better. But my 
tongue was swollen all up and when I tried 
to talk I just made funny noises. After a 
while I crawled out of the pond and shook 
myself, feeling sort of ashamed because I had 
made such a fuss. But Mother licked my face, 
and Freya, who had been lying nearby whin- 
ing, came running up and leaped about and 
barked. Even Father seemed sorry for me. 
47 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

Then he took us back to the frog, which was 
still sitting where I had left him, and said : 

“Have a good look at him, children.” 

So we looked at the frog and the frog 
blinked at us and seemed to be laughing. I 
growled and backed away from him. 

“The next time you take a frog in your 
mouth,” said Father, “be sure it is a frog and 
not a toad. Toads are very unhealthy for dogs 
and that thing there is a toad. When you 
took him up he put poison in your mouth. It 
was a good thing you were near the pond, for 
water is the only thing I know of that will 
help. I heard of a dog once who was poisoned 
by a frog and there was no water around and 
so he ran for home. The poison made froth in 
his mouth and Two-Legged Folks thought he 
was mad and a policeman tried to shoot him. 
Luckily for him the policeman aimed wrong 
and the dog got away. Now do you think you 
will know a toad the next time you see one?” 

48 


THE FROG WHO WAS A TOAD 

I said I was sure of it and then we went home 
and I crawled behind the flower-pots and 
stayed there a long time. I didn’t want any 
supper that day. You wouldn’t have wanted 
any, either, if your mouth had felt the way 
mine did. I think it is quite wrong to have 
things look so much alike as frogs and toads 
do ; and flies and bees, too. How is a puppy 
to know? 

When it was almost dark I crept out from 
behind the flower-pots and went to get a 
drink of water. Ju-Ju was outside, playing 
with a beetle, and when she saw me she grinned. 
She must have found out somehow about that 
toad. I hate cats. 


49 


CHAPTER VII 


THE CROSS DUCK 

The next day my mouth and tongue were 
quite well once more, but it was more than a 
week before I got brave enough to hunt frogs 
again. In fact, I have never cared for frog- 
hunting very much since, and I only did it 
after that just to show Frey a that I wasn’t 
afraid to. But I couldn’t get her to go with 
me. She’s rather a coward, Freya is. Just 
look at the time I scared the duck! The way 
she acted then made me quite ashamed of her ! 

That was months before I made the mis- 
take about the toad and I was younger and 
sillier. I told you that there were ducks on 
our place. Well, they lived in a house next 
door to where the chickens were, and in the 
day time they all waddled out as soon as Wil» 
50 


THE CROSS DUCK 

liam opened the gate for them and went down 
to the pond. They are stupid things, ducks. 
They don’t do anything all day long but wad- 
dle around and wag their tails and eat and 
swim and say “quack!” I don’t know what 
“quack” means and I don’t believe they do, 
for they always say it just the same way and 
no matter what happens. If they see William 
with their dinner they say “quack” and if they 
see a chicken-hawk sailing about they say 
“quack” and if I so much as look at them — 
from a distance — they say “quack” just the 
same. I don’t believe “quack” means a thing. 
They just want you to think it does. 

Well, one day I was trotting around by my- 
self looking for something to do when I caught 
sight of a duck sitting in the grass on the side 
of the brook quite a ways beyond the pond. 
She didn’t see me because she had her head 
hidden under her wing in the silly way ducks 
have. It had been a very dull day so far and I 
51 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


wanted some fun. So I thought it would be 
a good joke to creep up on Mrs. Duck and 
give her a good scare and see if she would say 
anything more than just ‘‘Quack!” 

Well, I did. I crept up very, very softly 
and when I was about two feet away I said 
^'Bow-wowT as loudly as I could. Mrs. Duck 
gave a start, pulled her head out and said 
"" Quack r much louder than I had said “Bow- 
wow 1” And then, before I knew what she was 
up to, she spread her wings very wide and 
jumped right at me! 

It — well, it sort of surprised me, because I 
didn’t know ducks did that. Besides, with her 
wings all spread open like that and her mouth 
very wide open, too, she looked almost as big 
as ten ducks! So — so I sort of backed away, 
not because I was afraid of her but just because 
I was so surprised. Besides, I’d had my fun 
and was ready to go away, anyhow. But she 
didn’t seem to understand that it was all just 
52 


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THE CROSS DUCK 


a joke and she came right at me, saying 
^'Quach! Quack! Quackr quite crossly. So I 
kept on backing away, and the faster I backed 
the faster she came for me and the louder she 
“quacked!’’ 

I don’t know exactly how it happened, but I 
got between Mrs. Duck and the brook. I 
didn’t know it, of course, or I should have 
backed another way. Another thing I didn’t 
know — and I wished I had known it — was that 
she had a nest full of eggs there and was hatch- 
ing out some little ducks. If I had known 
that I would not have gone near her. But I 
didn’t know it until afterwards. So I kept 
on backing and she kept on “quacking” and 
making dabs at me with her yellow bill and 
flapping her wings and all of a sudden I 
backed right over the side of the bank into the 
brook I 

There was not much water in the brook and 
I sat right down in a lot of soft, sticky mud. 

53 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


Of course I tried to get out, but the more I 
tried the faster I stuck in that nasty mud. 
And all the time that horrid, quarrelsome duck 
stood on the bank and said ‘‘Quack!” and 
scolded me. I was afraid she might come in 
after me, and that is why I tried so very hard 
to get out. But she didn’t. She just stood 
there and said a lot of mean things to me while 
the mud got stickier and stickier. And then 
I howled. Any one would have howled. I 
didn’t howl because I was afraid. I howled 
because I couldn’t get my feet out of the mud. 
No dog likes to be stuck in horrid black mud. 
Pretty soon Freya came and looked over the 
edge- of the bank at me. But she didn’t come 
very near where Mrs. Duck stood. 

“Why,” she said, “what are you doing down 
there, Fritz? William will be very angry with 
you for getting so dirty. You’d better come 
right out and take a bath in the pond before 
you go home.” 


54 


THE CROSS DUCK 

'‘I can’t get out!” I howled. “I’m stuck 
in this mud. Help me !” 

But Freya looked at the duck, who was still 
“quacking” at a great rate, and shook her head. 

“I — I’m afraid of her,” said Freya. 

“Afraid of a duck!” I said. “Well, I’d be 
ashamed to own it!” But I kept a watch on 
the duck because I was afraid she might under- 
stand what I said. She didn’t though. “Bark 
at her and scare her away,” I told Freya. 
“She — she won’t hurt you. Ducks are great 
cowards.” 

But Freya shook her head again. “I — I 
don’t like her looks,” she said. “Couldn’t you 
— couldn’t you pull yourself out if you tried 
very hard?” 

“No, I couldn’t,” I snapped. “If I could I 
wouldn’t be here now. If you can’t help me 
out of here you’d better run home and tell 
Mother. You’re an awful scare-baby!” 

So Freya walked two or three steps toward 
55 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


the duck and said “Bow-wow!” just as if she 
was frightened to death, which she was, and 
the duck paid no attention to her at all. Then 
Freya went a little nearer and barked again. 
That time Mrs. Duck heard her and turned 
around and made straight for her. Freya 
gave one awful yelp, tucked her tail between 
her legs and flew. And the duck went after 
her, flapping her wings and “quacking 1” And 
somehow just then I managed to get a front 
paw on a stone at the side of the brook and 
dragged myself out. And when I got to the 
top of the bank Freya was half-way across the 
meadow, still yelping, and Mrs. Duck was 
waddling back again. 

I didn’t stay there long, I can tell you. Not 
that I was afraid of that stupid old duck, but I 
wanted to get the mud otF me before it dried 
on. So I hurried back to the pond. But 
when I got there it was full of other ducks and 
they looked at me so queerly that I thought 
56 


THE CROSS DUCK 


I’d better not go into the pond after all. So 
I sneaked back to the stable, thinking I’d get 
behind the flower-pots before any one could see 
me. But just as I came to the door who 
should come out but William! 

^^Welir he said, just like that; ^^Welir I 
made a dash for the corner where the flower- 
pots were and got there, but he hauled me right 
out by my neck and held me at arm’s length 
and looked at me. ‘T never see a dirtier pup,” 
he said, “Where have you been?” Of course 
I didn’t tell him and he said: “Well, wherever 
you’ve been I know where you’re going. 
You’re going into the tub!” 

What followed was awful. William fllled 
the tub in the stable half-full of cold water 
and put me in it, I thought at first I would 
drown, but he held me up with one hand and 
lathered me all over with harness soap with 
the other. And then he took a horrid, stiff 
brush and scrubbed me until it hurt. The soap 
57 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

got in my eyes and smarted and it got into my 
mouth and tasted badly, and all the time Wil- 
liam scolded. 

I had to cry a little. You’d have cried too. 
I’ve heard you cry when Nurse got soap in 
your eyes, and you needn’t pretend you haven’t. 
Besides, it was all very unfair, I didn’t want 
to fall in the mud and get dirty. It was all 
that duck’s fault. But William just blamed 
it all on me without trying to find out how it 
really happened, and I had to suffer. Once 
I caught sight of Freya peeking around the 
corner of the door and I said to myself: “Just 
you wait till I get out of here, if I ever do, 
and see what will happen to you. Miss !” 

But when, after a long, long time, William 
thought he could not get any more dirt off 
me and so put me out on the floor, and when 
I had shaken myself half a dozen times, felt 
so good that I forgot all about the way Freya 
58 


THE CROSS DUCK 


had behaved and ran circles and barked until 
I was almost dry. Then I found a nice warm 
spot against the side of the stable and went to 
sleep. 

But even if I did forgive Freya that time 
you can see that she behaved very badly and 
is not at all brave. Still, I suppose that being 
a girl dog has a lot to do with it. You mustn’t 
expect a girl-dog to be as brave as a boy-dog. 

That was my first real bath. IVe had many 
since then and IVe grown to put up with 
them just as one must put with castor-oil and 
pills. But I’m sure I shall never get fond of 
them. I don’t mind wading in the pond or 
even swimming a little, but baths are quite dif- 
ferent. Besides, I am not a water-dog, like a 
spaniel or a retriever, and folks ought to think 
of that. They don’t, though. About once a 
month I have to go through with it, and the 
mere sight of a cake of soap quite takes my 
59 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


appetite away for hours. I once heard the 
Mistress tell the man who comes for the laun- 
dry that she wanted something “dry-cleaned.” 
I wonder why dogs can’t be dry-cleaned too ! 


60 


CHAPTER VIII 

THE OLD LADY WHO DIDN’t LIKE DOGS 

Are you scared of thunder storms? I am, too. 
Well, not exactly scared, maybe, but I — I 
don’t like them very well. I don’t mind the 
lightning so much, but the thunder is very 
noisy and it affects my nerves. I am quite a 
nervous dog. All highly-bred dogs are nerv- 
ous, you know. And when you can trace your 
family back for dozens of years, the way I can, 
you have every right to dislike thunder. Per- 
haps you didn’t know I had such a long pedi- 
gree? Mother told us all about it once. We 
are descended from Hansel von Konigsberg, 
who was the Champion of all Germany for 
many years and quite the finest dachshund that 
ever lived. He won all sorts of prizes wher- 
ever he was shown and was a very fine, proud 
61 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

dog. Every one in Germany knows about 
Hansel von Konigsberg. Mother says it is a 
fine thing to be descended from such a dog and 
that I should always try to live up to it. Well, 
that isn’t telling about the time I got under 
the bed in the guest-room when there was a 
thunder storm, is it? 

There were visitors at the house, and one 
was an elderly lady who wore a black silk 
dress and had her eye-glasses on a little stick. 
When she saw us puppies she held the glasses 
up to her eyes and looked at us just as though 
we were something quite strange. “Dear me,” 
she said, “what ugly little things. What are 
they?” The Master laughed and told her we 
were dachshund puppies. “You mean they’re 
dogs?” she asked. “Why, they look like alli- 
gators! Don’t let them come near me, please. 
I never could stand dogs, anyway, and these 
are quite — quite disgusting!” 

Neither Freya or I knew then what an alli- 
62 


THE OLD LADY WHO DIDN’T LIKE DOGS 


gator was, but we didn’t like the sound of it. 
Besides, she had said we were ugly and dis- 
gusting. So I looked at Freya and Freya 
looked at me and we made a rush for the old 
Lady Who Didn’t Like Dogs and jumped all 
over her. Of course we made believe we were 
awfully pleased to see her, but we weren’t. 
She gave a screech and dropped her eye- 
glasses. They were on a black ribbon, though, 
and so they didn’t break. But I got the rib- 
bon in my teeth and laid back and pulled and 
growled, and Freya took hold of the old lady’s 
skirt and shook it. And all the time the old 
lady said “Shoo ! Shoo, you nasty little brutes ! 
Oh, somebody take them away!” 

So the Master caught me and made believe 
spank me and the Mistress caught Freya and 
told her she was a naughty dog, and we both 
ran off, making believe we were very sorry 
and scared, and the old lady hurried into the 
house. 


63 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

Afterward Frey a and I laid down under the 
lilac hedge and talked it over. We decided 
that we didn’t like the old lady and that we’d 
wait there until she came out again to see the 
garden and then we’d make another dash for 
her and scare her again. But she didn’t come 
back and it was pretty hot and so we both fell 
fast asleep there. 

When we woke up it was quite late in the 
afternoon and the sky was cloudy and there 
was a rumbly noise that sounded like thunder. 
Frey a whined and said she was afraid. I told 
her not to be a silly; that thunder never 
hurt any one. She said the lightning might, 
though, and she was going to the stable and 
crawl under the hay. She wanted me to go 
with her, but of course it would not have done 
to let Freya think I was frightened too, and 
so I said. No, I was going to stay where I 
was. Freya ran to the stable and just when 
she got to it there was a most awful crash of 
64 


THE OLD LADY WHO DIDN’T LIKE DOGS 

thunder and I forgot how brave I was and 
looked for a place to hide. 

Well, William had taken the screen-door off 
that morning, to mend a place Freya and I had 
torn in the wire, and the other door happened 
to be open. So I looked around very carefully 
and then ran into the big room. Just then 
there was more thunder and a flash of lightning 
and I hid under the couch. But I knew that 
wouldn’t do because some one would surely 
And me there and put me out. So I listened 
and didn’t hear any one and went upstairs very 
quietly. And when I got to the top of the 
stairs there was a door open and I went in and 
crept under the bed. It was nice and dark 
there and I couldn’t see the lightning. But 
every time it thundered I trembled and whined 
and had a pretty bad time of it. I could hear 
the rain drumming on the tin roof outside, and 
it seemed to me that the storm lasted for hours. 
But after a while it stopped and the thunder 
65 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


got farther and farther away and at last it died 
out in httle growls and grumbles and I rolled 
over on my side and went to sleep, quite worn 
out. 

When I awoke I heard some one moving 
around in the room and just to be friendly I 
thumped my tail on the floor. Then some one 
came near the bed and looked under. It was 
too dark to see who the person was, but I 
thumped harder than before, and, will you be- 
heve it, it was that Old Lady Who Didn’t Like 
Dogs! She gave a most horrible scream and 
just flew through the door into the hall. Why, 
she almost scared me out of a year’s growth! 
She cried “Help! Help! There’s some one 
under my bed!” and I heard the Master shout 
from his room and come running. And the 
first thing I knew the room was full of folks 
and the old lady was telhng how she had heard 
a noise and had looked down and seen two 
“fierce yellow eyes glaring at her.” Deha 
66 


THE OLD LADY WHO DIDN’T LIKE DOGS 


shouted “ ’Tis a burglar, mum! We’ll all be 
murdered, sir!” But the Master told her to 
be quiet. 

“I dare say it is only the cat,” he said, and 
then he knelt down and looked under the bed 
and I thumped my tail harder than ever and 
the Master sat right down on the floor and 
laughed and laughed ! Then the Mistress said : 

“What is it, George? Do stop that silly 
laughing! Is it Ju-ju?” 

So the Master reached in and pulled me out 
by the scrulF of my neck and held me up. 
“Here’s your burglar,” he said. And then 
they all laughed ; all except the Old Lady Who 
Didn’t Like Dogs. She was very angry about 
it. 

“I am glad you all think it so funny,” she 
said with a sniff. “For my part I fail to see 
the humour. And what is more I refuse to 
remain in a house where I am to be pestered by 
dogs and scared out of my wits every min- 
67 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

ute. I’m thankful my trimk is not fully un- 
packed.” 

But she didn’t go, after all, for which Freya 
and I were sorry. And even though we 
stayed around the house a lot in the hope that 
she would come out so we could run at her and 
jump on her, she didn’t once set her foot off 
the piazza, and all we could do was get close 
to the screen and growl at her. The Mistress 
said: “It’s too bad you don’t like dogs. Miss 
Mumford, they’re such company for one, and 
living alone as you do a dog would be a great 
comfort to you. Just see the little dears beg- 
ging to be let in. Wasn’t it funny how they 
took to you at once the day you came? They 
seem quite fond of you.” 

And the Mistress glanced at me and then 
smiled at the thing she was sewing on. And 
Freya and I looked at each other and laughed. 
And the old lady who didn’t like dogs said 
“Humph!” Just like that. 

68 


CHAPTER IX 


THE LITTLE BOY FROM THE CITY 

More company came after that. It was in 
the Fall, when the leaves were turning to beau- 
tiful colours and falling off the trees and when 
the mornings and nights were quite cool and 
the best place to take a nap was in the stable 
doorway where the sun shone warmly on the 
floor. Freya and I were about six months old 
then and were getting to be pretty big for 
puppies. We weren’t as big as Father or 
Mother, but when we romped with either of 
them Freya and I together could do just about 
as we pleased with them. Lots of times 
Mother used to run away from us because we 
were so strong that we could roll her over on 
her back and bite her and shake her until she 
yelped. 


69 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

Others had grown up, too. All the fluffy 
little yellow chicks that Freya and I used to 
watch through the chicken yard wires were 
quite big, almost as big as their parents. And 
all the little ducklings had grown up into 
ducks and could say “Quack!” just like their 
mothers and fathers. In the garden the flow- 
ers had gone, all but a few, and it was a great 
rehef to me. I was always very fond of flow- 
ers and liked to pick them and eat them, but 
William didn’t like me to and would get after 
me whenever he caught me at it. I got a lot of 
cuffings on account of my love for flowers. I 
couldn’t understand why it was they were so 
selfish with them when they had so many. It 
seemed to me that one or two more or less 
would not have made any difference. But 
Two-Legged Folks are peculiar in many ways. 
They aren’t nearly so sensible as dogs. 

Even the Baby was getting bigger and older. 
She could talk quite nicely by Fall, although 
70 


THE LITTLE BOY FROM THE CITY 

you had to listen very closely to understand all 
she said. You see, she talked very quickly and 
ran her words together. It was the Baby who 
told me about the comptoy coming. It was 
one morning on the piazza. The screens had 
been taken off then and the Baby and I were 
in the hammock together. Freya didn’t like 
the hammock. She said it made her feel funny 
inside when it swung. I did, though. It was 
full of nice soft cushions and I was very proud 
when I found one day that I could jump up 
on it all by myself and didn’t have to be lifted 
up or pulled up any more. Well, the Baby 
and I were there together, swinging, and she 
was pulhng my ears the way she liked to do, 
and chatting all the time. I wasn’t paying 
very much attention to what she was saying 
because I was a little bit sleepy. It always 
makes me sleepy to have my ears pulled. 
Well, pretty soon the Baby said: 

‘‘Booful little boy’s coming to play wiv Mil- 

n 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

d’ed. All way f’om City. Coming to-day, I 
dess.” 

I pricked up my ears then. At least, I 
pricked up one of them, the one that wasn’t 
being pulled. I had never seen a little boy 
very near, but I had heard Mother speak of 
them and from what she had said I didn’t think 
I should like them. So I didn’t look very 
pleased at what the Baby said. Perhaps she 
saw it, for she went on: 

‘Ts very nice httle boy. Is coming all way 
f’om City to play wiv Mild’ed. Little boy’s 
name is A’fed.” 

I thought Afed was a very silly name for 
any one, even a boy. I found out afterwards 
that his name was Alfred, but I didn’t like it 
much better. I hoped he would be nicer than 
his name. The Baby talked on about him for 
a long time and I pretended to listen. Finally 
I got tired hearing about him and jumped 
down and went away. I made up my mind 
72 


THE LITTLE BOY FROM THE CITY 

that I wasn’t going to like A’fred, and when I 
told Freya she made up her mind she wasn’t 
going to like him either. We decided that we 
would bite his legs when he came. 

William drove to the railway station to meet 
Alfred and his mother, and Freya went along. 
William was very partial to Freya and used 
to take her with him quite often. He took me 
once and said he would never do it again be- 
cause I barked at everything I saw and fell out 
of the carriage. I didn’t mean to fall out, 
though, and it hurt a good deal. Anyhow, 
he took Freya with him that day and I 
found a warm place on a flower bed beside the 
house and waited for them to come back. Wil- 
liam didn’t like to have us lie on the flower 
beds, even after the flowers were through 
blooming, but I knew he wouldn’t see me and 
I meant to go away when I heard the carriage 
coming up the drive. 

But it was so warm there and the earth 

73 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


smelled so nice that I fell asleep. When I 
woke up the first thing I did was to howl and 
the next thing to run. Because William had 
come back without my hearing him and had 
crept over to me, and what had wakened me 
up was the carriage whip! I thought it was 
rather a mean thing to surprise me like that. 
When I had stopped hurting and running I 
looked back and there was the little boy with 
Freya in his arms going into the house. And, 
would you believe it, Freya was actually lick- 
ing his face! Isn’t that like a girl-dog, to 
break her promise the very first thing? Just 
pat Freya and she thinks you are perfectly 
lovely and follows you all around. For my 
part, I’d have more self-respect and pride. 
Folks can’t make friends with me by just pat- 
ting my head and saying “Nice doggie!” No, 
sir! , 

I was quite disgusted with Freya and I told 
her so later. 


74 


THE LITTLE BOY FROM THE CITY 

Alfred’s mother was a very sweet looking 
lady and I knew right away I should like her. 
I did, too. Not two hours afterwards she 
came out to see us and fed us peppermint 
drops. I am very fond of peppermint drops 
because they make your tongue feel sort of 
cold and tingley, and I liked the lady at once. 
Oh, not just because of the candy, of course, 
but because she was nice to look at and under- 
stood dogs and loved them. We can tell right 
off whether a person likes us. Alfred came 
out with his mother, and the Baby followed 
Alfred. She wouldn’t let him out of her sight 
and paid almost no attention to me. Alfred 
was really rather nice looking, for a boy, with 
golden hair, dark eyes and a sun-burned face. 
He was older than the Baby. When he saw 
me he cried: 

“Oh, there’s another of them! Come here, 
puppy! What’s your name ? ” 

Of course I paid no heed to him. I meant 
75 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


to show Freya that I had more sense than to 
grovel to folks just because they whistled to 
me and paid me a little attention! When he 
saw that I didn’t mean to come to him he 
started after me, and I showed my teeth and 
growled. He stopped then and made a face 
at me. “You’re not as nice as the other one,” 
he said. Then he picked up a pebble and 
threw it at me and I growled ^gain. “What’s 
this one’s name, Mildred?” he asked the Baby. 

“He name F’itz. Him booful dogums!” 

Alfred laughed. “Fits! That’s a funny 
name, isn’t it? Does he have them often?” 

“She means Fritz, dear,” said his mother. 
“Here, Fritz, come and see me.” 

So I went, but I wouldn’t let Alfred touch 
me, and he didn’t like it a bit. He fed candy 
to Freya and she fairly licked his shoes ! Girl- 
dogs have no pride. It so disgusted me that I 
turned right around and went down to the 
stable and crawled behind the flower-pots. 

76 


THE LITTLE BOY FROM THE CITY 

Even Father and Mother seemed to like 
Alfred, and they and Frey a played with him 
and the Baby a lot. I didn’t. I stayed away. 
It was pretty lonesome, though. Now and 
then Alfred would try to make friends with 
me. He begged cake from Cook and tried to 
get me to take it, but I wouldn’t. I’m fond 
of cake, too. I spent a good deal of time be- 
hind the flower-pots those days. You see I 
was afraid that some time when I was fearfully 
hungry Alfred would offer me cake and I’d 
take it. And I didn’t want to, for I had made 
up my mind not to be friends with him. One 
morning he and the Baby came out of the house 
when we were having breakfast at the back 
door and called to us. Of course Father and 
Mother and Frey a trotted right over to them, 
but I stayed and made believe I had found 
something more to eat in the dish. When 
Freya saw that she came back, but I growled 
at her and she went off again. 

77 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

“Come, F’itz!” called the Baby. “Come 
F’itz, booful dogums!” 

And Alfred called me too, but I wouldn’t 
go, and finally Alfred said: “Ob, come on. 
We don’t want him anyway!” 

So they went off toward the orchard to hunt 
squirrels. ‘ Of course I felt pretty lonesome 
and wanted to go with them very much. 
Hunting squirrels is awfully exciting, even 
though we never catch any. I licked the 
breakfast dish quite clean and then went to the 
comer of the house and peeked around. They 
were all over in the orchard and Father was 
barking at a great rate, making believe he had 
found a fox’s nest or something, and Freya was 
trotting behind Alfred and trying to lick his 
hand. The Baby was toddling along, laugh- 
ing, and Mother was barking at a bird. It 
looked very jolly and I crept along after them, 
keeping out of sight. 

They didn’t find any squirrels. I never saw 

78 


THE LITTLE BOY FROM THE CITY 

but one in the orchard and he wasn’t much to 
look at, having almost no hair on his tail. But 
we always pretended the trees were full of 
them. After they had been all around the 
orchard they chmbed the wall on the other side, 
which they were not allowed to do, and went 
into the thicket over there where the ground 
is all soft and squishy. I could have told 
them that they would soon find themselves in 
trouble, and I came very near barking and 
warning them, but I didn’t. It was no affair 
of mine. 

After a bit I heard Alfred shout and then 
jMother barked and the Baby began to cry and 
I knew just what had happened. I went back 
to the house and sat on the lawn and waited, 
and pretty soon they came back looking very 
sorrowful. The Baby had fallen down in the 
swamp and she was covered with black mud 
from head to toes. Alfred was leading her 
with one hand and trying to wipe off the mud 
79 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

with the other, and Freya, who never knows 
when she isn’t wanted, was getting in the way 
and barking and acting perfectly stupid. 
Father and Mother stayed behind, trying to 
look as if nothing much had happened. When 
they all passed me I just looked at them with- 
out a word and I can tell you they felt silly! 
The Mistress saw them from a window and 
came hurrying out to meet them, and Alfred’s 
mother came out, too. 

“Oh, Mildred, what have you done?” cried 
the Mistress. “Just see that nice clean dress 
I put on you not half an hour ago 1” 

“She — she fell down in the mud over there,” 
said Alfred. “We — we were hunting In- 
dians.” 

Did you ever hear anything so foolish? 
Just as though there were any Indians around 
there! Even if there had been Freya and I 
would soon have scared them away. Well, 
the Mistress led the Baby into the house and 
80 


THE LITTLE BOY FROM THE CITY 

Alfred’s mother said: “Alfred, come with me, 
please,” and Alfred said “Yes’m,” in a voice 
that seemed to come from his shoes. Father 
and Mother went down to the stable in a hurry 
and Frey a came over and sat down beside me. 

“A nice thing you did,” I said. 

“It wasn’t my fault,” said Freya with a 
whine. 

“You should have watched out for the 
Baby,” I said sternly. “You’ll catch it when 
the Mistress finds you.” 

So Freya suddenly remembered that she had 
left a bone behind the stable and trotted off 
after it, looking back now and then at the front 
door. Presently Alfred came out all alone. 
He had one arm over his eyes, but he couldn’t 
fool me. I knew he was crying. I guess his 
mother had whipped him, or maybe just 
scolded him, for letting the Baby fall in the 
mud. He didn’t see me and he went around 
the house and sat down on the back door-step 
81 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

and sniffled. I followed him. If you don’t 
like a person you enjoy seeing them cry. At 
least, you ought to, I think. But Alfred kept 
on crying kind of softly, just as though his 
heart was broken, and I couldn’t stand it. I 
wanted to go away and leave him there, but — 
but somehow I couldn’t do that either. 

So after a bit I crept over to him and got up 
on the step beside him and licked his face. He 
peeked out and saw it was me and was so sur- 
prised that he forgot to cry for a minute. 
Then he put his arm around me and I licked 
his face some more and- — and, oh, well, after 
that we liked each other a lot. 

Mother said afterwards that it was just 
jealousy that had kept me away, and I guess 
it was. Alfred stayed a whole week after that 
and we had some fine times together. When 
he went hack to the City I missed him a great 
deal. The place seemed very lonely. I think 
I missed him almost as much as the Baby did, 
82 


THE LITTLE BOY FROM THE CITY 

and the Baby cried all one day. I tried my 
best to comfort her and I licked her nose and 
her cheeks and her ears, but it didn’t do much 
good. She kept right on saying that she 
wanted her “booful A’fed.” The Mistress 
told her that she would see him again very 
soon because they were all going to the City to 
stay a long, long time. But that didn’t help 
me any, because I was quite sure they wouldn’t 
take me. 

And they didn’t. They all went off, bag 
and baggage, about a week later, and only 
William and Cook and Delia were left. 
Mother and I were very sad and lonesome at 
first. I don’t think Father minded so much, 
because he and William were great chums, and 
as for Freya, why, as long as she had enough 
to eat and some one to say “Good dog” to her, 
she didn’t care what happened. But Mother 
and I missed the Baby a whole lot, and the 
Mistress too, and the Master not so much be- 
83 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


cause he was busy a good deal of the time and 
we saw less of him. 

And then one day we woke up and the world 
was all white, and Mother said it had snowed in 
the night. And William picked up some of 
the white stuff and made a ball of it and threw 
it at Delia at the back door. And Delia 
squealed and ran inside. William said: 
“Well, well, winter’s here at last!” 

I think I have told you enough for now. 
You have almost fallen asleep two or three 
times. Besides, it is time for my nap. I al- 
ways like a short nap before dinner. And 
really I have talked an awful lot. I hope you 
liked my story. 



84 


PART TWO 


WHEN I GREW UP 



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CHAPTER I 


HOW AYE WENT HUNTING 

Bow ! 

So you want to hear some more of my story, 
do you? Very well. It’s a very good day to 
sit here by the fire and tell stories, because it 
is raining hard and there isn’t much a dog can 
do in the City on a rainy day. For my part 
I think cities are rather stupid places, any- 
way. Of course, on bright days, there’s the 
Park and the Avenue, and I like those very 
much. But it’s a bother always having to be 
on a leash. When I see a dog on the other 
side of the street whom I am quite sure I should 
like to know, all I can do is just say ‘‘Hello!” 
In the country I could trot over to him and 
make friends and, like as not, we’d go off on a 
nice long hunt in the woods. There’s lots to 
87 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


see in the City, but it is awfully noisy and 
crowded and at first it made me quite nervous. 
I’m getting used to it now. I do think it’s a 
mistake to have so little yard about the house, 
though, especially when it is paved with stone 
and brick. Even the stable floor is stone and 
I’m sure there are some fine fat rats under 
it if I could only get at them. Why, I haven’t 
had but one good dig since I got here! And 
that was that day in the Park when the big 
Policeman came running over, waving a funny 
short stick at us, and said he would have us 
both taken to jail if I didn’t stop digging. 

Yes, I do miss the digging. The other day 
I made believe I smelled a fox in the corner of 
the back hall and was scratching away at the 
boards and having a real good time when Cook 
came and drove me away. I forgave her, 
though, for she gave me a chicken leg to eat. 
I do have good things to eat here ; better than 
I used to in the country ; more diff erent kinds 
88 


HOW WE WENT HUNTING 

of things, anyway. And a dog likes variety 
as well as you Two-Legged Folks do. I don’t 
want you to think I am at all unhappy here, 
for I am not. If only there was a garden bed 
to dig in now and then I wouldn’t ask for more. 
And, anyhow, what a dog wants most is love 
and kindness, and I get lots cf that. I guess 
I don’t care about the flower bed. Excuse me 
just a moment while I lick your face. 

Well, I left off where the Family had gone 
to the City, didn’t I? We dogs had a good 
deal of fun in that snow. It was the first snow 
I had ever seen and I had a fine time running 
around in it and biting it. F reya sai<^ it made 
her paws cold and she sat in the stable door 
and just looked at it and shivered until I 
chased her out and rolled her over in it. After 
that she didn’t mind it a bit. William made 
snowballs and threw them for us to chase. It 
was great fun for they went into the snow, 
quite out of sight, and we had to burrow down 
89 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

and dig them out. And then when we tried to 
take them in our teeth to bring them back to 
William they would fall to pieces! 

After that there was no more snow for quite 
a long time and we hunted a good deal. Jack 
used to come over and he and Father, and 
sometimes the rest of us, would go trotting off 
into the woods and stay for hours. Sometimes 
Jack would see a pheasant or a grouse and get 
awfully excited and run and run after it and 
get so tired that when he came back he would 
have to throw himself down and rest. 
Usually, though, we never saw much except 
chipmunks and squirrels; but one day Jack 
found a rabbit in a clump of bushes and we all 
had a merry time chasing him. Of course the 
rest of us, with our short legs, couldn’t keep 
up with Jack and he and the rabbit were soon 
way ahead of us. And when we came up to 
him he was sitting by a hole in the ground 
where the rabbit had gone. 

90 


HOW WE WENT HUNTING 

Freya and I began to dig at a great rate and 
just made the dirt fly. Mother wanted to stop 
us, but Father said “No, let them have their 
fun.” Freya kept getting in my way, so I 
had to nip her on the leg and chase her away. 
Pretty soon all you could see of me was just 
the tip of my tail sticking out of the hole. 
And just then I heard a lot of barking and 
when I had backed out all the others were 
tearing across the field after that rabbit! He 
had crept out of a hole on the other side of the 
little hill where he lived and run off again. I 
felt rather silly. The others came back pretty 
soon without the rabbit. Mother said that 
rabbits lived in houses with a great many 
doors, and when you went in one door they 
came out another. I don’t think that’s a fair 
way to play, do you? Afterwards, though, I 
was glad we hadn’t caught the rabbit, for he 
was such a tiny, pretty little thing that it would 
have been a shame to hurt him. 


91 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

The weather got colder and colder and there 
was more snow. We didn’t mind the cold, 
though, for our coats had been growing thicker 
and warmer since summer, and our house was 
nice and cosy. One day Mother took Freya 
and me down to the pond and when we got 
there it looked very queer. I asked what had 
happened to the water and she said it had 
frozen into ice, and while I was looking at it 
she gave me a push and I had to run down 
the bank and when I got to the bottom and 
came to the pond my feet went up in the air 
and I went over on my back and I slid way 
out on the ice. Mother and Freya stood there 
and laughed at me, and when I tried to get on 
my feet they just slipped from under me and 
I was scared and whined. But Mother told 
me not to be a baby and pretty soon I got back 
to the shore and then I pushed Freya down 
the bank and she slid, too, and made a worse 
fuss about it than I had. Then Mother 
92 


HOW WE WENT HUNTING 

showed us how we could walk quite nicely by 
taking very short steps and soon we were all 
three chasing each other about and falling 
down and rolling over and having a grand 
time. 

One morning we awoke to find the snow 
above the bottom of the Kennel windows, and 
there was William out there with a red muffler 
around his neck digging a path to us with a 
wooden shovel. The snow that time was so 
deep that we could only go where William had 
made paths. But Father showed us how to 
have a lot of fun by digging tunnels and Frey a 
and I dug one all the way from the Kennel to 
the stable door. The funny thing was that in 
the tunnels, under all that cold snow, it was 
warmer than it was outside! 

When William went to the village for the 
mail and other things now he went in a sleigh, 
and one afternoon he took all us dogs with him 
and we had the finest sort of a time. We 
93 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


barked at everything we saw, and once Freya 
fell out of the sleigh into a snowbank and went 
out of sight! (I pushed her off the seat, but 
William didn’t know it.) In the village a 
lady who kept the little store where William 
bought his newspaper came out and petted us 
and fed us peanuts. Peanuts are very nice. 
The part you eat is inside a shell and you have 
to crack the shell open first. Sometimes you 
eat some of the shell too, without meaning to, 
but it doesn’t hurt you. The lady thought it 
was very funny to see us eat the peanuts and 
she laughed a lot and said we were clever dogs. 

“Sure, ma’am, they’ll eat anything at all,” 
said William, and the lady laughed some more 
and said: 

“I know one thing they won’t eat.” 

“What’s that?” asked William. 

So she went back into the little store and 
came out with something that looked like a 
94 


HOW WE WENT HUNTING 

lemon but wasn’t. “Let me see them eat 
that,” she said to William. 

“A pickled lime, is it?” said William. 
“They’re that fond of ’em, ma’am, I can’t 
keep enough of ’em on hand, but they’re bad 
for dogs, ma’am.” 

The lady laughed again. “That’s a fib,” 
she said. “You know they wouldn’t touch it.” 

“Won’t they then,” said Wilham. “Just 
watch ’em, ma’am.” So he took the pickled 
lime and looked at us, trying to make up his 
mind which of us to give it to. I hoped he 
wouldn’t give it to me, but he did. “Eat it, 
Fritzie,” he said coaxingly. “Good dog.” 

Well, William was a friend of mine and I 
wanted to help him out of his fix, and so I 
took it and laid it down on the seat and ate it. 
It was quite the worst tasting thing I ever had. 
It was sort of. sour and sort of salt and full of 
puckery juice. But I ate it, and when it was 
95 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


all gone I tried to make the lady think that 
I wanted more, and William was so pleased 
with me that afterwards he stopped at the 
butcher’s and brought out a piece of meat for 
each of us. I’m sure that meat saved me from 
being a very sick dog. Even as it was I felt 
quite unhappy for awhile and didn’t bark once 
all the way home. 

A few days after that the Family came back 
and maybe I wasn’t glad to see them again. 
William brought them from the station in the 
big sleigh, and as soon as they were in the 
house William called to us dogs and w^e all 
went running in to see them. And the Mas- 
ter said how well we all looked and how Freya 
and I had gi'own, and the Baby sat down on 
the floor and we all jumped about her and 
licked her face and I ran ofl* with one of her 
fur mittens and took it under the couch and 
chewed it a little. It was a very happy time. 
William told the Master how I had eaten the 
96 


HOW WE WENT HUNTING 

pickled lime for him in the village and the 
Master and Mistress laughed and laughed 
about it and said I was a fine dog, and after 
that for a long time the Master called me “the 
limehound” ! 

It was wonderful the way the Baby had 
grown in such a short time. I had to jump 
now when I wanted to lick her face! She was 
awfully glad to see us and cried a little when 
William took us back to the Kennel. 


97 


CHAPTER II 


HOW WE SPENT CHRISTMAS 

The next day the Master, the Mistress, the 
Baby, William and us dogs went for a walk 
together. William carried an axe and a piece 
of rope. I thought we were going hunting. 
The snow was quite deep and the Master and 
the Mistress wore funny flat things under 
their shoes which kept them from sinking 
through the snow. The Master carried the 
Baby in his arms until we had got to the woods, 
and she kept saying “Kismas twee! Kismas 
twee! Booful Kismas twee!’’ all the way. 
When we were at the edge of the woods the 
Master and Wilham walked around and 
looked at the trees and at last the Master said 
“This one, William,” and Wilham swung his 
axe and down came the tree. It was only a 
98 


HOW WE SPENT CHRISTMAS 

small one and I tried to tell them that there 
were very much larger ones further on, but 
no one paid any attention to me. When the 
tree was cut down William tied the rope to it 
and we went home, William dragging the tree 
after him over the snow. I thought it was a 
pretty poor sort of hunt. 

It began to snow again before we were back 
at the house and Wilham put us to bed early 
that evening. The next morning the snow had 
stopped and the sun was shining brightly. 
William let us out and we all tore up to the 
back door, very hungry indeed. And when 
Cook gave us our breakfast what do you sup- 
pose it was? What’s the nicest thing you can 
think of? Mince pie? Why, of course not; 
dogs don’t care for mince pie. No, nor candy 
— ^much. What we had that morning was 
liver and corn-bread, with lots of gravy ! How 
was that for a feast? And Cook and Delia 
and William stood around and saw us eat it 
99 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


and laughed and seemed very gay and happy. 
And after that William took us into the 
house. 

There was the Baby and the Master and the 
Mistress, and they all cried “Merry Christ- 
mas!” as we came tumbling in; only the Baby 
said “Maykismas!” instead, which was the 
best she could do. Between the windows in 
the big room was that tree we had brought 
home the day before, but you would never 
have known it for the same tree. I didn’t 
know whether to bark at it or wag my tail. So 
I growled. That tree was all covered with 
the most wonderful sparkly things! There 
were glass balls of red and yellow and green 
and white and blue, and long strings of shiny 
stuff that glittered in the sunlight, and 
strings of pop-corn — only I’d never seen any 
pop-corn just like it before, because it was 
pink! — and all sorts of little toys and col- 
oured paper hags and, at the very tip-top of 
100 


HOW WE SPENT CHRISTMAS 

the tree, a little white angel with wings like 
a dragon-fly! And underneath the tree were 
many things wrapped in paper and tied with 
red ribbons. 

‘‘Just see Freya!” laughed the Mistress. 
Would you believe it, that dog had helped her- 
self to one of the packages and had taken it 
under the table and was tearing the paper off 
it! I was terribly ashamed of her, I can tell 
you ! But the Master and the Mistress didn’t 
seem to mind it. They only laughed. And 
the Master looked at what Freya had taken 
and said: “Smart dog! It had her name on 
it!” And the Baby clapped her hands and 
every one seemed to think that Freya had 
really done something very clever! 

The Master reached under the tree then and 
picked up one of the packages and looked at it 
and said: “Now then. Young Fritz, here’s a 
present for you. Sit up and ask for it, you 
rascal!” 


101 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

So I sat up on my hind legs and begged and 
he put it in my mouth and I took it off to a 
corner and smelled of it. It didn’t smell very 
nice, I thought. It made me think of some- 
thing but I couldn’t remember what. So I 
tore the paper off it and — can you guess what 
I found? A pickled lime! Wasn’t that a 
mean joke? I hacked away from it in a hurry 
and they all laughed at me and I crawled 
under the couch where Freya was chewing on 
a rubber ball with her eyes closed. I took it 
away from her, but the Mistress said “No, no, 
Fritzie ! You mustn’t take Freya’s ball away. 
Here’s something nice for you.” 

So I sat up and begged again and the Mas- 
ter gave me another present and when I’d got 
the paper and ribbon off it there was a rubber 
cat that squeaked every time I bit it! It 
looked a httle like Ju-Ju, who was sitting on 
the window-sill with a new pink bow around 
her neck, and when I saw that I bit it harder. 

108 


HOW WE SPENT CHRISTMAS 

Father got a new collar and a rabbit made of 
cloth, Mother got a Teddy bear and a tin bug 
that walked across the floor and went click- 
click-click, Freya got the ball and a cloth cat 
which was bigger than mine hut didn’t taste so 
good and I got a wooden duck that flapped its 
wings and opened its mouth when you moved 
it. I didn’t think that the Family knew about 
the time the duck made me fall into the brook, 
but they must have. I suppose Ju-Ju told 
them. That cat talks too much, anyway. 

And we all had sweet biscuits and candy 
which the Baby fed to us until the Mistress 
told her we had had enough. After that we 
were allowed to stay there and play a long 
time. I chewed that rubber cat until it stopped 
squeaking and then tried the duck. The paint 
tasted very good. Freya stole a bag of candy 
from the tree and ate half of it before I found 
out about it and took it away from her. 
Really, her manners were awful that day ! 

103 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

I ate the rest of the candy so as to punish 
her for stealing it, but I didn’t really want it 
and after I had eaten it I began to feel sick. 
It was just as well, I think, that they let us out 
just then. I don’t know what the rest did, but 
I hurried right down to the stable and got be- 
hind the flower-pots and had quite a miserable 
time of it for a while. You see, besides the 
sweet biscuits and all that candy, I had eaten 
most of a rubber cat and one wing of a wooden 
duck. I think, though, that it was the yellow 
paint that made me sick. 

I felt better in the afternoon and crawled 
out and went back to the house. The Baby 
had a new sled and she was coasting down a 
little hill behind the house. She would sit on 
the sled and take one of us dogs in her arms 
and then Nurse would give her a push and off 
she would go. I coasted twice but didn’t care 
much for it. I wasn’t feeling quite well yet. 
For dinner that day we had turkey, and it was 
104 


HOW WE SPENT CHRISTMAS 

fine; almost as good as liver and corn-bread. 
I was very glad that I felt well enough by that 
time to eat all that was given to me — and some 
of Freya’s. Then William took us down and 
put us to bed and that ended that Christmas 
Day. I had had a very good time, on the 
whole, hut I was a little glad that Christmas 
didn’t come very often! 



r 

I chewed that rubber cat until it stopped 
squeaking and then tried the duck 


105 


CHAPTER III 

MORE LESSONS 


It was in February that Father and Mother 
began going away from home for three and 
four days at a time. William usually went 
with them, but once the Master went. Each 
time they came back they brought a bunch of 
pretty ribbons, blue and red and yellow and 
white, and William put them in a glass case in 
the harness room where there were lots more. 
Of course we asked Mother where the ribbons 
came from and she said from the dog shows 
and told us about them. But we didn’t under- 
stand very well. It seemed that the ribbons 
were prizes given to Father and Mother be- 
cause they were such fine dogs, and William 
and the Master and every one was very pleased 
and proud each time Father and Mother came 
home. 


106 


MORE LESSONS 

Father was proud, too. He got more rib- 
bons than Mother. I didn’t think that was 
fair, but Mother didn’t seem to mind. After 
each show Father would be very lazy and just 
lie around and look proud and Mother would 
fetch him bones. But after a day or two 
Father would forget to be proud and find his 
own bones. It wasn’t much fun for Freya 
and I when Father was being proud, because 
he slept a lot and if we made the least noise 
Mother would say ‘‘Hush, children! Your 
father is taking a nap and you mustn’t waken 
him. Go somewhere else and play.” So we 
were glad when the dog shows stopped for a 
while. 

Freya and I were to learn about dog shows 
for ourselves, though. When we were almost 
a year old William began putting a leash on 
my collar and Freya’s and walking us about. 
At first I didn’t like it at all. It made me 
quite nervous to have that strap holding me 
107 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

back. The first time William put it on I stood 
still and he kept tugging at it and saying 
‘‘Come on, now, Fritzie! Come on now!” I 
was quite willing to go with him, but I didn’t 
like the feeling of that collar up around my 
ears. Still, it didn’t do any good to put my 
feet out and hold back because William 
dragged me, and when I found that out I de- 
cided I’d run away from him. So I started 
off in a hurry. But there was that horrid 
strap, and when I’d gone a little ways my feet 
went out from under me and I turned a somer- 
sault. That frightened me and I ran off in 
another direction. But each time that leash 
stopped me. Then I began to run around 
William in circles and howl and presently, 
when I couldn’t run any more, because the 
leash was wrapped around William’s legs, I 
gave a final tug and William fell over on his 
back in a flower-bed where there were some 
sweet peas just coming up. He was very 
108 


MORE LESSONS 


angry. I saw that at once and so I tried my 
best to get away from there. But the more I 
tried to run the angrier William got. You 
see, he couldn’t get the strap from around his 
legs and so he couldn’t get on his feet. And 
just then I heard the Baby clapping her hands 
and Nurse saying “Why, William! What- 
ever are you doing there?” 

And then William was so surprised and felt 
so silly that he let go the leash and I pulled it 
loose and ran as hard as I could run to the 
stable and crawled behind the flower-pots. 
But of course he found me and pulled me out. 
He always did. Sometimes now I wonder 
why I didn’t And a better place to hide in. 

Well, William had his way in the end and I 
got so I didn’t mind being on the leash and 
would walk along ahead of him quite nicely. 
Freya had to learn too. She didn’t mind it as 
much as I had, hut then she never had much 
spirit. After we got used to the leash Wil- 
109 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


liam would put a flat box in the middle of the 
carriage room floor and make us get up on it 
and stand there for minutes at a time. I 
didn’t see much fun in that, and at first when 
he got me on the box I jumped right down 
again. But he was very — very — Now what 
was it that Mother said he was ? Oh, patient ; 
that was it; very patient. That was what 
]M other called it, but I said he was stubborn. 

Anyway, he kept at me until I did just what 
he wanted me to, and after a while I didn’t 
mind standing on the box, although I couldn’t 
see much sense in it and it seemed a dreadful 
waste of time. But IMother told us what it 
was all for, and then I was quite willing to do 
what William wanted. You see, we were be- 
ing trained for the dog shows. I thought that 
was very nice because it meant going on a jour- 
ney, just as Father and Mother had, and bring- 
ing back a lot of pretty ribbons. Father said, 
though, that if I didn’t behave better than I’d 
110 


MORE LESSONS 

been behaving I wouldn’t get any ribbons. 
F ather can be quite gruff at times. Freya was 
so excited about it that she could talk of noth- 
ing else. 

“Won’t it be fine,” she would say, “to be in 
a show and have hundreds of people admiring 
you and patting you and saying what a lovely 
dog you are? I know I shall just love it, 
Fritz!” 

Girl-dogs are always vain, you see. Vanity 
is not becoming in dogs any more than in Two- 
Legged Folks and so I growled and said: “I 
guess no one will look twice at you. Miss 
Stuck-Up 1 You’re much too homely.” 

That made Freya cry and she ran off to ask 
her mother if it was so. Of course she really 
wasn’t homely. I only said that so she 
wouldn’t be vain and proud. Freya in some 
ways was a better looking dog than I was. 
Her coat was what the Master called “per- 
fectly wonderful.” It was very black and 
111 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


very shiny; just like satin. And her ears were 
fine and long and silky. And she had nice 
eyes, too, and a good tail. My tail had a place 
on the tip where there was no hair. Poor Wil- 
liam troubled a lot about that spot and rubbed 
it with grease for weeks and weeks. The 
grease didn’t seem to do much good, though. 
Perhaps I licked it off too soon. That place 
never has got quite right and I don’t think it 
ever will. But even if Freya was a little bet- 
ter looking than I, she couldn’t run as fast or 
dig as deep or do useful things as well as I 
could. I was lots stronger and bigger. 
Mother said that was as it should be ; that girl- 
dogs were not supposed to be as big and brave 
and strong as boy-dogs. 

Well, William taught us all sorts of things 
that Spring. It was a good deal of a bother, 
but the thought of being taken to the dog show 
helped me to be patient and go through with it. 
After we had been in training for a month or 
112 


MORE LESSONS 

more I asked Mother when the show was to 
be and she said she didn’t know ; that maybe it 
wouldn’t come for a long time. I didn’t like 
that and I had made up my mind that there 
wasn’t any use in going through with so many 
lessons if nothing was to come of it when, one 
morning, the Master came down to the stable. 

“Well, how are they getting on, William?” 
he asked. 

“Fair, sir,” said William. “Freya takes to 
it like the lady she is, sir, but Young Fritz is 
slower. He’s as stubborn as his father, sir.” 

Now I thought that very unkind of William 
after all the trouble I had taken to please him, 
and just to show that my feelings were hurt I 
sneaked off and got behind the flower-pots. 
But I could hear what they were saying in the 
carriage room, and pretty soon the Master 
said: 

“Well, I think we’ll try them out at the Oak 
Cliff Show in June. It’s nearby and there’s 
113 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


only one day of it. They’re bound to be nerv- 
ous the first time and a small show is a good 
one to start them with.” 

I pricked up my ears at that, because it was 
already the last of May, and crawled out from 
back of the fiower-pots. 


114 


CHAPTER IV 


A VISIT TO JACK 

“Fkeya won’t mind it a bit, sir,” William was 
saying. “She’s the sort that loves a bit of fuss 
and excitement. She’ll show well, she will, 
sir.” 

William always thought whatever Frey a did 
was all right. I made up my mind to show 
them that I could behave just as well as she 
could, and so I went back to the carriage room. 

“Well, let me see how they act,” said the 
Master. 

So William snapped the leash on my collar 
and walked me slowly around in a circle sev- 
eral times. Then he stopped and I stopped 
and stood quite still. Then he led me to the 
box and said “Up, boy!” and I jumped up on 
the box and stood there very straight, with my 
115 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

head up and my body stretched as long as I 
could stretch it. Then William took hold of 
my tail and lifted my back legs up by it, and 
felt me all over and opened my mouth and 
looked at my teeth and went through with all 
the things he always did when I was on the 
box. And finally he said “All right, boy!” 
and I jumped down and looked at the Master 
and wagged my tail. I could see at once that 
he was very pleased. 

“Why, there’s nothing wrong with him, Wil- 
liam!” said the Master. “I never saw a dog 
have any better ring manners than that.” 

William scratched his head and shook it and 
looked at me in a puzzled way. “Well, sir,” 
he said at last, “I never knew him to do it like 
that before. Seems as if he was sort of show- 
ing off, don’t it, sir?” 

“Why, yes,” laughed the Master, “and that’s 
what we want him to do !” 

Then Freya went through with it and didn’t 
116 


A VISIT TO JACK 

do as well as I had because she kept wiggling 
all the time, wanting the Master to speak to 
her and pet her. Girl-dogs are silly that way. 
There’s a time for everything, hut they don’t 
understand it. They always want to play 
when it’s time to work, which is quite wrong. 
Well, the Master was much pleased with both 
of us and said that we’d surely be shown at the 
Oak Cliff Show next month, and that he’d 
send in the entries at once. I ran off to tell 
Mother about it and she was pleased too. 

“You must be a very good dog,” she said, 
“and do just as William tells you to. And 
when you get to the show you must mind your 
own aff airs and pay no attention to other dogs 
or to people. I don’t think your father or I 
will be there, so you must look after yourself 
and Freya.” 

I was sorry Father and Mother were not 
going, but I was quite excited at the thought of 
Freya and I going alone, and I hunted up 
117 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

Freya to tell her. When I found her she was 
looking very sad and I asked her what the 
matter was. 

“I have a pimple,” she whined. “William 
just found it. He says if I don’t get rid of it 
before the show I won’t get a prize.” 

And she absolutely began to cry! Aren’t 
girl-dogs funny? I looked at the pimple and 
it was so small I couldn’t see it at first. It 
wasn’t worth bothering about. I’d had them 
five times as large as hers. Why, the time I 
ate the crow that I found in the truck garden 
I had dozens of great huge ones! And Wil- 
liam put some smelly stuff on them and gave 
me a dose of nasty medicine and they went 
right away again. So I laughed at Freya and 
she stopped crying, and after William had 
rubbed something on the pimple I told her 
what Mother had said. I thought she would 
be quite pleased about it, but she wasn’t. You 
never can tell what a girl- dog will do ! 

116 


A VISIT TO JACK 


“Oh,” said Freya, “I should be frightened to 
death to go away without Father and Mother! 
I just couldn’t do it!” 

“Well,” I said, “you’ll just have to. Be- 
sides, William will be there and maybe the 
Master, too.” 

“But it isn’t the same as having your own 
parents,” said Freya, looking teary again. 
“Suppose — suppose anything happened to us !” 

“What could happen?” I asked. “Besides, 
Tm going to be there !” 

That ought to have satisfied her, I thought, 
but it didn’t, and she went running off to tell 
Mother how frightened she was. That was 
too much for me and I trotted over to call on 
Jack and tell him the news. 

I found him in the back yard eating a fine 
big veal bone. “Hello, Fritz,” he said, push- 
ing the bone to me. “Want to chew on that? 
It isn’t half bad. I’m afraid I’ve eaten the 
best of it, though.” 


119 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

It was very nice and sweet, that bone, and I 
settled down to enjoy it, and between crunches 
I told him about Freya and I going alone to 
the dog show. He didn’t seem to think it was 
so grand, though. He kind of turned up his 
lip at it. 

“The Oak Cliff Show?” he said. “Oh, 
that’s just a small affair, a one-day show, 
managed by the women folks. It’s pretty 
good fun, of course, but even if you do bring 
back some ribbons they don’t amount to much.” 

I guess he saw that I was disappointed, be- 
cause he went on: “Not that it isn’t worth 
while, of course. I used to go to it when I was 
a little fellow. You’ll like it and I dare say 
Freya will get a ‘blue.’ You too, maybe. A 
‘red,’ anyhow. I have five or six ‘blues’ that 
I got there.” He yawned. “When is it to 
he?” 

“Some time in June,” I said. 

120 


A VISIT TO JACK 

‘‘Of course; it always is in June. I meant 
what day?’’ 

I couldn’t tell him that, though. 

“Well, you’ll have a good time. Don’t let 
folks handle you too much, Fritz. It upsets 
you and you don’t do so well in the ring. And 
don’t pay any attention to the jur’ges. Act as 
if you didn’t see them. When i was a puppy 
I was too friendly and bit one of the judges on 
the nose when he was bending over me. I 
just did it in play, but I guess I bit too hard, 
because he made a great to-do about it and sent 
me right out of the ring and I didn’t even get 
a mention.” 

‘T suppose,” I said, “a great many dogs go 
to it?” 

“Oh, about a hundred, I think. You’ll meet 
all kinds. Don’t have much to do with them. 
Some of them are no-account dogs. It takes 
all sorts of dogs to make a world, you know.” 

121 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

“A hundred!” I said. “My, but that’s a lot 
of dogs, isn’t it? I didn’t know there were so 
many in the world. Jack!” 

Jack laughed. “A hundred’s nothing,” he 
said. “In the New York show I’ve seen nearly 
five hundred! That’s a show that is a show, 
Fritz! Maybe if you do pretty well at Oak 
Cliff the Master will send you there next win- 
ter.” 

“I wish he would,” I answered. “It must 
be fine.” 

Jack yawned again. “It’s rather good fun 
until you get used to it,” he said. “Going? 
Well, come again. I’ll drop over and see you 
before the show.” 

So I thanked him for the loan of his bone 
and trotted home. 


122 


CHAPTER V 

THE TURTLE 

A WEEK before we were to go to Oak Cliff 
William began to groom us every morning and 
evening. We were mbbed all over with a 
cloth that was wet with something that smelled 
good and left our coats smooth and glossy. 
We were brushed, too, and our claws were cut 
and our teeth were cleaned and he even washed 
our ears! I stood everything very well but 
that. I do hate to have my ears washed. 
Don’t you? 

As for that bare spot on the end of my tail, 
poor William worked and worked and fussed 
and fussed and worried and worried over that. 
‘T’m thinking,” he told me once, “that it would 
be fine if you’d wag your tail hard when the 
judge is looking at you and maybe he won’t 
see where the hair’s off!” I suspected that 
123 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


William put some sort of medicine in our food 
those days. I couldn’t find it, but there was 
a little different taste to things. I think that 
is a very mean thing to do to a dog. Poor 
Freya had a hard time getting enough to eat 
that week, because Wilham said she was a little 
too fat and so he only gave her about half what 
he usually did. Sometimes, if I wasn’t aw- 
fully hungry and William wasn’t looking, I’d 
leave a little in my dish and let her finish it. 

Of course all the attention we had took a lot 
of time and it was hard to stay quiet so long. 
But I went through with it as best I could be- 
cause I knew that the nicer I looked at the 
show the more likely I was to get a pretty rib- 
bon. The worst of it was that after William 
had groomed us we were supposed to be very 
good and keep ourselves clean. That wasn’t 
much trouble for Freya. She hked being 
fussed over and I think she was glad of an ex- 
cuse to be lazy and lie around in the sun and 
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V 



THE TURTLE 


not go hunting. But it wasn’t so easy for me, 
and try as hard as I might I seemed to be al- 
ways getting into scrapes. Like the time I 
caught the turtle. 

William had just fixed me all up until I felt 
much too clean for comfort and told me to be 
good and not get dirty. I really meant to 
obey him, but I didn’t think it was much fun 
to just lie around the stable and so I asked 
Freya to go for a run with me. She wouldn’t, 
though. She said William wouldn’t like it 
if she did. So I went oif alone and wandered 
down into the meadow and chased grasshop- 
pers for awhile. There isn’t much fun in that, 
though. They’re not good to eat when you 
catch them. So I went on down to the brook 
and presently I saw the funniest looking thing 
you can imagine. When I told Mother about 
it afterwards she said it was a turtle, but I 
didn’t know what it was then because I had 
never seen one before. It lived in a shell that 
125 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

was a sort of greenish-brown on top and yel- 
low underneath. There were two funny little 
paws on each side and a funny little tail behind 
and a much funnier little head in front, and it 
was crawling along very slowly toward the 
brook. I watched it a minute and then I ran 
up to it and barked. Then it did the queerest 
thing! Instead of harking back or saying 
‘‘quack” like the ducks or “cluck” like the hens 
it just pulled itself inside that shell until there 
wasn’t anything in sight but the place it lived 1 
I thought that was very impolite and so I 
turned it over with my nose and barked again. 
But it wouldn’t come out. I barked at it a 
long time but it did no good, and then I lay 
down a little ways off and watched. Pretty 
soon the turtle thought I’d gone away and out 
came his head very, very slowly and he looked 
around with two little glittering yellow eyes. 
I think he was quite surprised to find himself 
on his back. He looked surprised, anyway, 
126 


THE TURTLE 


and he worked his paws and tried to turn him- 
self over. Then he saw me, I guess, for he 
went back into his house very quickly again. 

“You are a very stupid fellow,” I said, 
“whatever you are. Come on out and play.” 

But he wouldn’t, and so pretty soon I went 
over to him and patted him with my paw. 
That didn’t bring him out, either. I made up 
my mind then that I’d take him home to 
Mother and ask her what he was. So I just 
picked him up in my mouth, house and all, and 
started along the brook with him. I had gone 
just a little ways when I felt a sharp pain in 
my lip, and I looked and that turtle had put 
his head out and was biting me! You may 
believe that I let go of him pretty quick! But 
he wouldn’t let go of me. He hung right on 
to my lip and swung there. I pawed at him 
and rubbed my head on the ground and howled, 
but it did no good. That turtle held on tight. 
By that time he was hurting a lot and I began 
127 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


to yelp and roll around and shake my head and 
do everything I could think of to get rid of 
him. And in the middle of it I slipped over 
the side of the bank and rolled down into the 
brook on my back! 

After that I don’t remember just what did 
happen for a minute or two. I know that the 
turtle was still there and that I stuck my head 
into the mud and rolled over and over in the 
water and had an awful time and almost 
drowned myself before that horrid turtle finally 
let go of me. When I crawled out I was cov- 
ered with mud and water and my lip was bleed- 
ing and I was shaking all over. I laid down 
for a while on the bank to get my breath and 
then I went back to the stable, hoping I could 
get behind the flower-pots before William saw 
me. But I didn’t. He was washing a car- 
riage, and Father was helping him, when I got 
there, and he saw me before I could get by. 
My, but he was angry! He just took hold of 
128 


THE TURTLE 


me by the neck and held me with one hand and 
turned the hose on me with the other. Being 
washed with a hose is very unpleasant. The 
water gets in your eyes and mouth and ears. 
I had a very had time of it. WiUiam scolded 
and scolded until he saw the place on my lip 
where the turtle had bitten me. Then he was 
sorry for me and dried me with a big chamois- 
skin and put some salve on the wound and it 
felt better. And I crawled behind the flower- 
pots and went to sleep. 

Turtles and toads and ducks and bees are 
not good for dogs. They don’t play fair. 
It’s funny the lot of trouble I got into down 
by that brook. There was the time the duck 
“quacked” at me and I fell into the mud and 
the time the toad poisoned my mouth and the 
time the turtle bit me. You would think that 
I’d have learned to stay away from the brook, 
but I never did. 


129 


CHAPTER VI 


AT THE DOG SHOW 

We started out, William and Freya and I, 
very early one morning for the dog show. I 
think it was a Saturday. Anyhow, I remem- 
ber that we had liver for breakfast the next 
day, and we usually had liver on Sundays. 
Freya and I were put in the dog crate and the 
crate was put in the little wagon and William 
drove. The Master, the Mistress and the 
Baby went in the carriage. Father and 
Mother were left at home. Father made quite 
a fuss about it and climbed into the wagon 
twice and had to be put out, but Mother just 
told us to be good children and not get into 
trouble and went back and laid down in the 
stable doorway. 

Freya was so excited that she couldn’t keep 
130 


AT THE DOG SHOW 

still. I was excited, too, but I didn’t show it. 
I just laid down on the bottom of the crate 
and peeked out between the slats and tried to 
see the world. It was hard work, though, be- 
cause the slats were very close together and 
the wagon bumped a good deal. After a while 
the wagon slowed down and we heard a lot of 
barking and knew that we were almost there. 
When William lifted the crate down and 
opened it the Master looked in and said 
“Hello, you rascals! Have a good trip?” 
Freya and I licked his hand and he put chains 
on our collars and we jumped out. 

I was a httle frightened at first. Never had 
I seen so many people or heard so many dogs. 
And as for carriages and automobiles, why, I 
suppose there must have been hundreds ! 
Folks were walking around over the grass and 
dogs were being taken out of hampers and 
crates and it was a strange and wonderful 
scene. In front of us was a monstrous big 
131 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


tent, oh, quite the largest tent you can possibly 
imagine! And from the tent came such a 
barking and yelping as I’d never heard. 
Freya tugged at her chain and seemed very 
anxious to get to it, but I held back and sort 
of wished myself back home. But just then 
the Mistress and the Baby came up with some 
other folks, and the Baby put her arms around 
my neck and said I was her “booful dogums” 
and I felt braver. So we all went into the 
tent. 

It was full of platforms, or “benches” as 
they called them, which were open in front and 
closed at back and divided into little pens by 
wire screens. William led us to one of the 
pens and as we went all the dogs who saw us 
barked and yelped and said things to us and 
made a frightful noise. We jumped up on 
the bench and William tied our chains to rings 
in the back of the pen. There were two pieces 
of paper with numbers on them tacked there, 
132 


AT THE DOG SHOW 

and the Master tied tags to our collars, and 
the tags had the same numbers that were on 
the back of the pen. Mine was 86 and 
Freya’s was 87. William brought a big arm- 
ful of nice clean straw and put it on the bottom 
of the pen and I got as far away into a corner 
as I could and laid down and shivered a little. 
But Freya jumped and tugged at her chain 
and barked and went on very rudely. Wil- 
liam took a piece of cloth and rubbed us hard 
with it and then he brought us some water. 

While I was lying in the corner a dog in the 
next pen tried to put his nose through the grat- 
ing and I turned around quickly and nipped it. 
It didn’t hurt him much, I guess, but he made 
an awful fuss about it and a lady who was sit- 
ting on the edge of his pen scolded me and 
said I was a horrid dog and that if I did that 
again she’d have me taken away. She took 
that other dog in her arms and petted him and 
gave him something to eat out of a little bag, 
133 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


and the dog whined and sniffled and acted ter- 
ribly silly. I made up my mind that if he put 
his nose into our pen again I’d give him an- 
other nip. And just then he saw me looking 
over at him and he winked at me, and I knew 
that he had been making all that fuss so his 
Mistress would give him something out of the 
little bag! 

I asked him later on what it was she gave 
him and he said it was raw meat. He said I 
didn’t hurt him much but he wanted the meat. 
He was the same kind of a dog as I, only he 
was all brown and very fat. We got to be 
very good friends later. His name was Sigis- 
mund. He told me that his Mistress took him 
to all the shows hut he never got a prize but 
once and then there were only two other dachs- 
hunds there. He said he didn’t mind not get- 
ting prizes, but that his Mistress always felt 
very badly about it and was quite cross to the 
judges. 


134 


AT THE DOG SHOW 

“She thinks I’m a very fine dog,” he said, 
“but I’m not, you know. You can see your- 
self that I’m too short in the body and too high 
at the back. Besides, my teeth are bad. That 
comes from too much meat. It’s all rather 
tiresome, this sort of thing, but she likes it and 
I put up with it. Who is the dog with you?” 

I told him she was my sister and he said she 
was very pretty and he guessed she’d get a blue 
ribbon. All this was later in the day, though, 
after I’d got sort of used to the noise and all 
the people. They kept walking around and 
walking around until it made my head spin to 
see them. I did wish they’d sit down some- 
where or go away. They’d stop in front of us 
and say the rudest things! Why, one lady 
looked at us and said “Did you ever see such 
funny things, Tom? The idea of any one 
thinking them nice!” Freya let folks pat her 
but I didn’t. I growled. 

Across the aisle from us were a lot of big, 
135 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


long-haired dogs with pointed noses. I heard 
William say they were collies. They did noth- 
ing but bark all the time. They were the most 
excited dogs I ever saw. Further along were 
some fox terriers, and besides those there were 
all kinds of other dogs whose names I didn’t 
know. 

All the time dogs were going by on chains, 
and Sigismund said they were going to the 
judging pen. I couldn’t see the judging pen 
hut I could hear people clapping their hands, 
and every little while a dog would pass us with 
a blue or a red or a yellow ribbon on his collar 
which the judges had given him. And if it 
was a blue ribbon he would look very, very 
proud, and if it was another coloured ribbon 
he looked just a little bit proud. I asked 
Sigismund if it was very hard being judged 
and he said it wasn’t and that he usually took 
a nap while it was going on. 

It got very warm in the tent after a while 
136 


AT THE DOG SHOW 

and William gave us some fresh water and a 
piece of biscuit, which was all we had for din- 
ner. Pretty soon after that a man in overalls 
went around saying: “Class 49, Dachshunds! 
All entries to the judging pen!” Then Wil- 
liam made us jump down and he and the Mas- 
ter led us to where there was a square pen 
fenced off with boards. All around it on the 
outside were people looking over the top of 
the fence. Inside there were many dachs- 
hunds when we got there and more followed us 
through the gate. Sigismund was there, too, 
with his mistress. He winked at me and then 
closed his eyes and looked exactly as if he was 
going to sleep ! 

Presently we all began to walk around in a 
circle at the end of our chains while two men 
stood in the centre of the pen and watched us. 
Then we stopped walking and the two men 
came and looked us all over, and one by one 
we stood on a little platform in the centre and 
137 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


the two judges felt of us and pulled us and 
looked into our mouths and made me very 
nervous. But when my time came I remem- 
bered what William had taught me and what 
Mother had said and stood very quiet and held 
my head up and stretched my legs out. It 
really wasn’t bad at all because the man who 
judged me was very gentle and I didn’t mind 
what he did. 

After me three other dogs went on the box 
and were judged. And then the two judges 
talked together a minute and went over to a 
little table in one corner and picked up some 
ribbons and came back. I wondered whether 
they would give one of them to William, and 
they did, but it was a red ribbon and William 
didn’t look very pleased even if he did say 
“Thank you” quite nicely. A very handsome 
dog named Champion Hillside Carl got the 
blue ribbon, which was the first prize. I* was 
138 


AT THE DOG SHOW 


sorry I had got only the second prize because 
William looked so disappointed. 

Then it was Freya’s turn to try and she and 
five other girl-dogs were put on the box one 
after the other, and Frey a looked so pretty that 
the people watching over the fence clapped 
their hands. That pleased Freya and she 
wagged her tail and smiled at the judge and he 
patted her head. And when it was all over the 
judge walked right up to the Master and gave 
him the blue ribbon, and every one clapped 
some more and all the dogs barked. William 
didn’t feel so badly after Freya had got the 
first prize. 

I thought then that we would be led back 
to our bench, but it seemed that we were to try 
for other prizes first. There were prizes for 
what they called “novices,” which were dogs 
who had never been in a show before. There 
was a prize for boy novices and one for girl 
139 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

novices, and Freya and I each won a first, and 
by that time William was all smiles. Then 
Freya and I were judged as a pair and we 
each got a second prize. The first prize went 
to Champion Hillside Carl and a girl-dog who 
was quite good-looking but not nearly so 
pretty as Freya. 

Then we went back to the bench and Wil- 
liam and the Master said how well we had 
done and how nicely we had behaved in the 
pen. Besides the lovely ribbons, which had 
gold letters on them and which William at 
once hung up at the back of the bench, we had 
won money. Freya had won eleven dollars 
and I had won nine. The Master said we 
should each have a fine new collar. I wanted 
to wear my ribbons, but William wouldn’t let 
me. Sigismund had not won anything at all 
and I was very sorry for him, and told him so. 
But he only laughed. 

“I didn’t expect to,” he said. ‘T never do. 

140 


AT THE DOG SHOW 

For my part I’d much rather stay at home, but 
my Mistress likes this sort of thing. She told 
the judges that they didn’t know their busi- 
ness. She always tells them that. You did 
very well, you and your sister both. You’d 
have got that other blue if that Hillside Carl 
dog hadn’t been there. He’s been winning 
first prizes for two years now. I meet him 
everywhere I go. He’s an awfully stuck-up 
chap.” He yawned and stretched himself. 
“Well, it’s about over now and I shall be glad 
to get home again.” 

I curled up and took a little nap and when 
I awoke William was taking the ribbons down 
and it was time to go home. We jumped back 
in the crate and pretty soon we were bumping 
along the road once more. Freya was still too 
excited to keep still, but I managed to get a 
few more winks of sleep on the way back. 
When we reached the stable Father and 
Mother were waiting for us and maybe they 
141 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


weren’t pleased when we told them about the 
prizes! Mother jumped around and licked 
our faces and barked. Father didn’t say 
much, but I could see that he was every bit as 
glad as Mother. When I told him about 
Champion Hillside Carl he sort of growled. 

“Humph,” he said, “was that dog there to- 
day? I’ve beaten Carl twice and I could have 
done it again. He isn’t so fine. His ears are 
too short, and he is deaf in the left one. Only 
the judges are too stupid to find it out! I 
wish Td been there!” 

We had a supper of broth and bread and 
went to sleep early, being pretty well tired out. 



142 


CHAPTER VII 


THE STRANGE MAN 

There were no more dog shows for us that 
summer, although Father and Mother went to 
one in August and Father came back with 
three blue ribbons and Mother with a blue and 
two reds. Father had beaten Champion Hill- 
side Carl quite easily and was very proud for 
several days and Mother trotted her feet off 
finding bones for him. 

It was just after the show that Alfred and 
his mother came to visit us again, and I was 
awfully glad to see him. He had grown a 
good deal since the summer before. But then 
I had grown too and he said he would scarcely 
have known me! I don’t know which of us 
was gladder to see him, the Baby or I. We 
had some fine times in the next two weeks. 

143 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

We hunted squirrels in the orchard and had 
picnics in the woods and played all sorts of 
games. But we didn’t look for Indians in the 
swamp, I can tell you ! 

Alfred liked me best of all the dogs and one 
evening he came down to the Kennel after it 
was dark and carried me to the house and took 
me to bed with him and I slept there all night 
curled up in his arms. In the morning we had 
a fine romp when we woke up, but I guess we 
must have made too much noise, for Nurse 
heard us and came in and said, “Why, Master 
Alfred, wherever did you get that dog? Put 
him right off the bed this very instant!” 

Nurse had left the door open and so I ran 
out as hard as I could and down the stairs. 
It wasn’t my fault that Delia was coming up 
just then with a tray of toast and coffee for 
Alfred’s mother, was it? Besides, she might 
have seen me if she had been looking. She 
didn’t, though, and I was in a great hurry and 
144 


THE STRANGE MAN 

tried to run between her feet. I was almost 
at the bottom of the stairs when I heard the 
tray fall, and a piece of toast came rolling 
down after me. I thought it best not to stop 
for it, however, although I am very fond of 
buttered toast. Fortunately, William was 
shining the brass knocker on the front door and 
I was able to get out without more trouble. 

I went right down to the stable and got be- 
hind the flower-pots and stayed there until the 
middle of the forenoon, but nothing happened, 
and so, when I heard Alfred whistling, I came 
out. William was there, too, and when I saw 
him I laid down on my back and put my feet 
up. But he only laughed. 

‘‘Don’t be letting Delia get hold of you to- 
day,” he said. “Keep away from the kitchen, 
Fritzie, my boy.” 

And then he and Alfred both looked at each 
other and laughed again, and Alfred and I 
found the Baby and Frey a and went down to 
145 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


the brook and waded. When I saw Delia she 
had a piece of white cloth tied around her head. 
I don’t know why she did it, because it didn’t 
make her look any prettier. 

After that Alfred took me to bed with him 
several times and I liked it a lot. And Nurse 
didn’t say a thing when she found me there. 
Delia and I made it up and were good friends 
again in a day or two. And then it came time 
for Alfred to go back to the city and I felt 
very sad and lonesome. So did the Baby, and 
she and I used to sit together in the hammock 
on the piazza and talk about Alfred and wish 
him back again. I was a great comfort to the 
Baby, I’m sure. 

I was a year and a half old that Autumn, 
which, for a dog, is quite grown-up, you know. 
When I did anything silly Mother would say : 
“Remember, Fritz, you are no longer a 
puppy.” It was hard to do that, though, and 
I was just as fond of play as ever. But, of 
140 



toolc 




f 







THE STRANGE MAN 

course, I had grown much more sensible and 
wise. Experience is a great teacher. I heard 
Father say that once, and I guess it must be 
so. I didn’t get into scrapes any more; at 
least, not many. I did dig a hole under the 
stable one day and then couldn’t get out again 
until William had taken some of the stones out 
of the wall. But that was because I didn’t 
know that the ground under the stable was so 
much lower than it was outside. It was rather 
a jolly place down there and I think there 
were rats there, but I was too frightened when 
I found I couldn’t get out again to do any 
hunting. And after that William put a stone 
where I’d gone in and I was never able to get 
back to make sure. 

And then there was another scrape, too, 
which was quite the worst I ever got into. I 
shall not forget that very soon, I can tell you! 
It happened that October and this was the way 
of it. 


147 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

Freya cared less for hunting and running 
around than ever that Fall and so I used to 
go about a good deal alone. Sometimes 
Father would take me to look for foxes, but 
that wasn’t very often, and we never found 
any. And sometimes Jack and I would go for 
a run together. It wasn’t much fun for him, 
though, because my legs were so short that he 
had to wait for me to catch up to him every 
little while. So very often I went alone. I 
didn’t mind. There is so much to see if you 
use your eyes and so much to smell if you use 
your nose. And there are lots of nice things 
to listen to, besides. Like the songs that the 
birds sing and the whispers the breezes make in 
the trees and the chattering of the squirrels 
and chipmunks and so many, many other 
sounds. There are lots of wonderful and in- 
teresting things in the world, and a dog who is 
treated kindly and has a nice home to live in 
has a very good time. The nice home has a 
148 


THE STRANGE MAN 

lot to do with a dog’s happiness, as I found out 
when I didn’t have one. 

One nice sunny day, when the leaves on the 
trees were all yellow and red and were flutter- 
ing down, I found myself on the road that 
passes our gate. I had been chasing a chip- 
munk. He ran along on top of the wall and 
the fence, making a funny little squeaky noise, 
and every time I got near him he would give 
a long jump and get away again. And some- 
times he would run down to the ground and 
hide and I’d have to hunt him out. When I 
lost him Anally in a hole that went down under 
the stone wall I was nearly half a mile from 
home and there was a man walking toward me 
along the road. 

He didn’t look quite like a nice man and I 
started to trot away from him. But he called 
to me in a kind voice and so I stopped and 
looked back. Ajid when I looked he stooped 
and held something toward me in his hand and 
149 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


it had a very good smell. William doesn’t 
give us raw meat except once in a great while 
when we aren’t feeling very well, but I knew 
the smell of it and I knew that it was raw meat 
that the man wanted to give me. I was hun- 
gry and so I thought it over and decided that 
if he really didn’t want the meat himself I 
might as well have it. 

But I was a little bit afraid and didn’t go 
right up to him. He tossed a piece toward me 
and I went back and got it and it surely tasted 
awfully nice. Then he tossed me another piece 
and I ate that, and almost before I knew it I 
was eating the rest of the meat out of his 
hand and he was patting me and saying “Good 
dog.” And then he slipped a piece of string 
through the new collar that the Master had 
bought me with the money I had won at the 
dog show and when I tried to turn around and 
go home he wouldn’t let me! Instead of that 
he pulled me down the road right in the oppo- 
150 


THE STRANGE MAN 

site direction. At first I went along without 
any fuss, but when we got farther and farther 
away I began to pull back and whine. Then 
he got very angry with me and when he saw 
I would not go unless he pulled me he called 
me names and kicked me! 

I had never been kicked before and it 
frightened me even more than it hurt, and it 
hurt a good deal. I yelped and tried to run 
away then, but the string held me, and every 
time I sat down and wouldn’t walk he kicked 
me with his boot. I soon saw that if I didn’t 
want to be kicked I must go with him, and so 
I went. But I was awfully frightened and I 
wanted to bite him but didn’t dare to. Pretty 
soon we came to a cross road which was wind- 
ing and narrow and we turned into that and 
walked and walked for the longest way before 
we came to a house. It was a very small house 
and it needed paint and the yard in front was 
dirty and untidy. And when we went through 
151 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


the gate a horrid ugly big bulldog came run- 
ning toward us, barking and growling. But 
the man kicked him too, and the bulldog 
howled and ran into a shed near the house. 


152 


CHAPTER VIII 


HOW I WAS STOLEN 

The man took me into the house, which was 
just as dirty and untidy as the yard and smelt 
badly, and tied the string to the leg of a table 
there. He went into another room for a few 
minutes and I sat there and shivered until he 
came back. Then he took off my nice new col- 
lar, with its silver name-plate and silver buckle, 
and slipped a horrid old leather strap around 
my neck. He read what it said on the name- 
plate and then tossed the collar aside. 

“You ought to fetch a good price, old boy, 
if they give you a collar like that,” he said. 
“Come on now.” 

So he led me outdoors again and across to 
the shed where the bulldog was. When the 
bulldog saw the man come in he howled and 
153 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


ran out quickly. There were some boxes in 
one comer of the shed that had bars in front 
of them and I was put into one of these. Then 
the man went out and closed the door behind 
him. 

It was quite dark in there, and cold and 
damp too, and there was nothing in the box 
to lie on, and I was very unhappy. I sat and 
shivered and whimpered for a long time, and it 
got darker and darker. No one came to see 
me. I heard the bulldog prowling about out- 
side and sniffing at the door and I heard the 
man whistle to him once. Then it got quite 
dark and after a while I cried myself to sleep. 
But I was too cold to sleep soundly and I was 
very glad when the light began to come back 
and I knew that it was morning again. 

The man brought me two or three bones 
without much meat on them and a broken dish 
with some water in it. I didn’t care much for 
the bones, but wanted the water a good deal. 

154 


HOW I WAS STOLEN 

The man left the door open a little when he 
went out and pretty soon the bulldog came 
sneaking in. 

“Well,” he said gruffly, “and where’d he pick 
you up?” 

I told him. 

“So you’re one of those pet dogs I’ve heard 
of,” he sneered. “Lie on a cushion and eat 
cake, they tell me. Well, you won’t get any 
cake here. Bones and kicks are all you’ll have 
now for a while. I know. I’ve lived here 
four years. Pass out one of those bones. 
They’re mine by rights, anyway.” 

I told him he could have them all and pushed 
them through the bars where he could get 
them, and he seemed more good-natured after 
that. He ate them just as though he was half- 
starved, and growled and growled over them. 
He had very bad table manners. After he 
had chewed them until there was nothing left 
on them he laid down and we talked. 


155 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

He wasn’t really a bad sort of dog at heart, 
only he had been treated cruelly all his life, 
kicked and beaten and half-starved. Dogs, 
you know, are very much like you Two-Legged 
Folks. Be gentle and kind to us and we will 
be gentle and kind, too. Treat us crossly and 
we may grow to be cross and snappy like you. 
You are the ones we serve, and so it is not 
strange that we should learn our manners from 
you. Poor Jim — for that was the bulldog’s 
name — had had only blows and ugly words 
ever since he was a puppy and he didn’t know 
what it was to be well-fed and petted and 
looked after. He had heard of dogs who had 
nice homes and kind masters and he pretended 
to make fun of them and called them “pets,” 
but I knew very well that he envied them all 
the time. 

I asked him what his master would do with 
me and why he had taken me from my home, 
and he said that I would be taken to the City 
156 


HOW I WAS STOLEN 

and sold. ‘‘You’re not the first dog who has 
been here,” he said. “Every month or so he 
brings one home with him. I’ve met a lot of 
them in my time.” 

“But he has no right to do that,” I said. 
“If I did a thing like that William would say 
I was stealing.” 

“Of course,” said Jim. “He’s a thief. He 
makes his living by it. He will get twenty or 
thirty dollars for you, perhaps. He would 
have sold me long ago if I had been worth sell- 
ing. Besides, he needs me here to keep people 
away.” 

“Did — did he steal you, too?” I asked him. 

“I don’t know. I suppose so. I’ve been 
here ever since I can remember. Probably he 
stole me when I was a very little puppy. 
Sometimes I’ve thought I’d run away, but I 
never have. I’m afraid to. I’m such an ugly 
looking dog that no one would want me, I 
guess. So I just stay here and take what 
157 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

comes. I wouldn’t mind what he did if he 
would only give me a kind word once in a 
while.” 

Just then there was a noise outside and Jim 
sprang up with a growl and went to the door. 

“Some one coming along the lane in a car- 
riage,” he said. “I must be off.” 

He went out and in a moment I heard him 
begin to bark loudly. Then his master spoke 
to him and he was still and I heard another 
voice that I knew. 

“Hello,” said William. “Seen a stray 
dachshund around here?” 

“What might that be?” asked the man. 

“A black dog with tan markings; long body 
and short legs,” answered William. 

“No, I ain’t seen any dog except this one 
here. Want to buy him?” 

What William said to that I don’t know, 
because I began to bark as loudly as I could. 
But as soon as I barked Jim barked too and 
158 


HOW I WAS STOLEN 

fcarked a lot louder than I could, and I sup- 
pose William couldn’t hear me at all. At any 
rate, when I stopped a moment to listen all I 
could hear was the sound of the buggy rattling 
off down the road. I felt very sorry for my- 
self then and I laid down in a corner of the 
box and whined and whimpered as though my 
heart was broken. After a while Jim came 
back. 

I think he pitied me a little. “I’m sorry I 
had to do it,” he said. “If I hadn’t he’d have 
beaten me, you know.” 

“You could have run away for awhile,” I 
whimpered. 

“I’ve tried that. It doesn’t do. He doesn’t 
forget. When I come back I get the beating 
just the same. Cheer up, Fritz. Maybe 
you’ll have luck and find a nicer home than the 
one you had.” 

“It couldn’t be nicer,” I said, “and even if 
it was I wouldn’t like it. I want to go home !” 

159 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

“Where is this home of yours?” he asked. 

So I told him, and told him all about Wil- 
liam and the Master and the Mistress and the 
Baby and my parents and Freya and every- 
thing. It made me cry some more, but I liked 
to talk about the folks I had lost and Jim lis- 
tened very politely and seemed interested. 

“That must be fine,” he sighed. “You say 
they fed you twice a day, regular?” 

“Yes.” 

“Think of that !” he said, “You aren’t mak- 
ing it up, are you?” 

“Of course not!” 

“I didn’t know,” Ke said. “I’ve heard of 
such things, but I never really believed them. 
Say, if I could help you get away I would, 
honest, Fritz! But it’s no use. There isn’t 
anything I can do.” 

We talked over two or three plans, but there 
didn’t seem to be any way out of it. When 
it was getting dark again the man came in and 
160 


HOW I WAS STOLEN 


took me out of the box and led me into the 
house. As soon as he let go of the string I 
made for the door, but he caught me and 
cuffed me and closed the door tightly. Then 
he took a box and put me into it and nailed a 
lid down on top of me. There were some little 
holes bored in the sides of the box which barely 
let in enough air for me to breathe. Pretty 
soon he took the box under his arm and set 
out with it. As we went out of the yard Jim 
called “Good-bye, Fritz! Good luck!” But 
I was too unhappy to reply. 



161 


CHAPTER IX 


IN THE ANIMAL STORE 

It was a long journey and I was terribly 
frightened. After the man had walked a long 
way there was a lot of noise and then we were 
in a train, only I didn’t know what it was at 
the time. The motion made me very uncom- 
fortable and I felt a little bit sick at my stom- 
ach. But I managed to go to sleep presently, 
with my nose close up to one of the holes in 
the box. 

The next thing I knew the box was being 
lifted up and then the man carried me for 
awhile. It was very noisy where we went and 
it smelled differently from any place I’d ever 
been. I guessed it was the City, and I was 
right. When we reached the end of the jour- 
ney the cover of the box was taken off and I 
162 


IN THE ANIMAL STORE 

found myself in a little room with the man who 
had stolen me and another man who looked 
very dirty and fat. I could hear a lot of funny 
noises; dogs barking and cats meowing and 
birds chirping. The man who had brought me 
there said: ^ — — 

“Thirty dollars takes him, Bill, and not a 
cent less. He’s a prize-winner, he is. Be- 
longs to — ” 

‘T don’t want to hear who he belongs to,” 
said the other man. “You bring him to me 
and say you want to sell him. That’s enough. 
If he wasn’t your dog I wouldn’t be buying 
him. But twenty dollars is all I can pay for 
him. There ain’t much call for dachshunds 
just now. They ain’t in style.” 

So the two men talked and talked for a long 
time, the man who had brought me saying he 
must have thirty dollars and the other man 
saying he could only pay twenty. But after 
awhile they agreed on a price and the new man 
163 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


gave the other some money and he went away. 
Then the new man took me into another room 
that was filled with cages and put me into one 
and gave me water and food. I was very 
tliirsty and a little bit hungry, but the place 
was so strange that I didn’t do more than 
drink a little water at first. 

There were lots of dogs there in cages, some 
of them just little puppies, and there were cats, 
too, cats with long hair and bushy tails and 
cats with short hair, and one cat with no tail 
at all ! And there was a goat, too, and parrots 
and canaries and queer birds whose names I 
didn’t know, and lizards and turtles and gold- 
fish swimming about in tanks of water. Oh, 
it was a funny, queer place, and as for noise — 
well, I’d never heard anything like it! Even 
the dog show was a quiet place compared to 
that store. People came in from the street 
outside and stared at us through the bars of 
the cages and poked their fingers at us and 
164 


IN THE ANIMAL STORE 


laughed when we were frightened, as I was, 
or when we tried to lick their hands, as the pup- 
pies did. 

Right across the aisle from where I was 
there was a little cage made mostly of glass 
and in it were some tiny white mice with funny 
pink noses. Every little while one of the mice 
would come out of a loaf of bread where they 
lived and get in the middle of the cage and go 
around and around and around in a circle as 
fast as he could spin! I suppose he was chas- 
ing his tail, just as I used to do when I was a 
puppy, but he did it so fast that my eyes ached. 
Sometimes two of the mice would spin at the 
same time and it made me dizzy to see them. 

Well, I stayed in that store for many days, 
just how many I don’t remember. Several 
times folks asked about me; what my name 
was, how old I was, had I any tricks, what my 
price was ; and once I was nearly bought by a 
very stoiA lady who had lots of rings on her 
165 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


fingers. But I (Jidn’t like her smell — you 
know we dogs judge folks a good deal by their 
smell — and so I snapped at her when she went 
to stroke me and she said right away that she 
wouldn’t take me. I thought that the man 
would be very angry with me, but he wasn’t. 
He just chuckled as he put me back in the 
cage. 

After that I made up my mind that I would 
have to stay right there in that store all the 
rest of my days, for I had heard the man tell 
folks that my price was fifty dollars, and fifty 
dollars seemed a great deal of money and I 
didn’t believe that any one would ever give that 
much for me. The man used to tell folks a 
great many fibs about me. He said my name 
was Kaiser and that I was raised in Germany 
and had taken twenty-four prizes at dog shows 
since I had been in this country. He said I 
was just two years old and as sound as a 
whistle. He wasn’t far wrong as to my age, 
166 



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IN THE ANIMAL STORE 

and I was sound, but the rest of the things he 
said were just plain fibs. I was sorry about 
the fibs, for he was rather a nice man and 
treated us all quite kindly, and I was afraid 
something dreadful would happen to him for 
telling stories. It is very wrong to tell fibs, 
of course, and dogs never do it. 

I made several friendships at that store. 
There was Mouser, who lived next cage to me. 
I never thought that I should like a cat, but I 
did. He was a big grey cat and had the long- 
est whiskers I ever saw. He and I would put 
our heads through the bars and have fine long 
talks together. He had seen a great deal of 
life and had always lived in the City. At first 
he wouldn’t believe the things I told him about 
the country. He took quite an interest in 
Ju-Ju and said he thought she was a very lucky 
cat. Mouser didn’t know who his parents 
were or where he was born. Isn’t that 
strange? Fancy not knowing your own 
167 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

father or mother! I wouldn’t like that, would 
you? 

Mouser said that when he was a tiny little 
kitten he lived just anywhere; under doorsteps 
and on roofs and in sheds; and all he had to 
eat was what he could find in the gutters. I 
guess he had a pretty hard time of it until a 
little girl picked him up one day and took him 
home with her. After that he had a nice home 
for nearly a year. Then the little girl’s family 
went away and closed the house up and Mouser 
was put out into the street again to get along 
as best he could. It was harder then than it 
was before, because he had got used to having 
his food given to him and to having a nice warm 
place to sleep each night. For awhile he al- 
most starved, he said, and had to fight other 
cats, and dogs, too, and even rats sometimes, 
to get anything to eat. He said he stayed 
around the house he had been living in for a 
long time, hoping the family would come back 
168 


IN THE ANIMAL STORE 


again and let him in, but they never did and so 
finally he wandered away to another part of 
the town where there were many more garbage 
barrels. He said he was like the cat in the 
verse that the little girl used to recite to him. 
I asked him what the verse was and he repeated 
it to me. This was it : 

Poor little Kitty-in-the-Street ! 

Ain’t got no thing to eat; 

Ain’t got no garbage pails. 

Ain’t got no fishes’ tails; 

Poor little Kitty-in-the-Street 

Ain’t got no thing to eat! 

I think it is quite a sad little verse, don’t 
you? 

One day when Mouser was prowling about 
looking for his dinner a man with a net on the 
end of a pole came along and slipped the net 
over him and took him off in a wagon to a 
place where there were lots and lots of cats 
who had no homes, like Mouser. The next 
day a lady came looking for a cat who would 
169 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


catch mice and a man whose place it was to 
find homes for the cats said: 

“Got just what you want, Lady. Here’s 
a fine big fellow that’s a regular mouser.” 

So the lady liked his looks and carried him 
to her home in a basket and named him Mouser. 
Before that he had had another name, but he 
didn’t remember what it was. He stayed with 
the lady for a long time and then she, too, went 
away to live in a place where cats were not al- 
lowed and so she brought Mouser to the animal 
dealer’s, and here he was looking for a new 
home. I told him I didn’t think I would like 
having so many homes, but he said you got used 
to it in time and that almost anything was bet- 
ter than no home at all and being just a 
“Kitty-in-the- Street !” 

Then there was Prince. Prince was a 
funny, good-natured dog who lived in a big 
cage across the aisle. He wasn’t any regular 
170 


IN THE ANIMAL STORE 

kind of dog, but a little of every kind. He had 
a long brown coat and a shaggy tail and a 
pointed nose and very yellow eyes. One of his 
ears stood up straight and the other fell over 
just as if it was tired. But he was a real nice, 
jolly fellow, and had the finest, deepest bark I 
ever heard. He was just about my age and 
had been born in the country. One day he 
came with his master to the city to sell a load 
of vegetables at the market and another dog 
quarrelled with him and they had an awful 
fight and the other dog bit him so that he had 
to run away. And when he stopped running 
he was quite lost! He hunted around and at 
last he found the market again, but his master 
had gone. So he stayed there for a long time 
and the marketman gave him pieces of meat 
and he got along very nicely. He thought 
that some day his master would come back 
again. And perhaps he did, but Prince wasn’t 
171 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


there because one day a boy tied a piece of rope 
about his neck and took him to the animal 
dealer’s and sold him for fifty cents. 

He was quite happy and contented, though, 
and I liked him very much. And I hope that 
he and Mouser each found a nice home. There 
was a little white and tan dog whose name was 
Peaches — which is a funny name for a dog, 
isn’t it? — and he lived in a cage next to Prince 
for awhile. He was sold while I was there 
and taken away by a big man with a gruff voice 
to hunt rats in a stable. Peaches was not a 
very gentlemanly dog, but he was full of fun 
and we all liked him a lot. One of the funny 
things he did was to stand on his front legs, 
with his hind legs in the air, and walk around 
the cage. And while he did it he would say : 

“Mary had a little dog, 

He was a noble pup; 

He’d stand upon his front legs 

When you held his hind legs up!” 


172 


IN THE ANIMAL STORE 

The parrots were noisy things. I don’t see 
why any one should want a parrot around, do 
you? There was one that used to look at me 
by the hour with his head on one side until I 
got quite nervous. When I barked at him he 
would laugh and say “Here, Fido! Here, 
Fido! Good dog! Good dog! Who killed 
the chicken?” I wished very much that I 
could have got hold of that parrot and pulled 
some of his tail-feathers out! 

Well, I stayed in that store a long time, and 
I got so I didn’t mind the noise much. We 
had plenty to eat and drink and once a day we 
were taken into a tiny yard at the back to run 
around. Of course I wasn’t happy, and I 
used to long for my home and Mother and 
Father and the Baby and William and Freya 
and, most of all, I think, for Alfred. When 
I got to thinking about them I felt very sad 
and would often cry myself to sleep, just as I 
used to do behind the flower-pots. I tell you 
173 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

I missed those flower-pots a great deal those 
days! I had quite given up the hope of ever 
getting back to my home, or even getting away 
from the animal store, when one day a won- 
derful thing happened, a thing so wonderful 
that it deserves a chapter all to itself! 


174 


CHAPTER X 

BACK HOME AGAIN 

I WAS having a little nap at the back of my cage 
when I heard a lady’s voice say: “No, thank 
you, we are just looking about. My little boy 
wants to see the dogs.” 

I pricked up my ears, for I seemed to know 
that voice, but I couldn’t think whose it was. 
The lady was out of sight and I waited eagerly 
for her to reach my cage. And while she was 
still at the front of the store I heard another 
voice say, “Mother, do you suppose they have 
any dachshunds?” and my heart just jumped 
right up into my throat. For the voice was 
Alfred’s ! I leaped against the bars and 
barked and barked, I can tell you! And 
Alfred and his mother heard me and came to 
see what all the noise meant. And when 
Alfred saw me he cried : 

175 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 

“Oh, Mother, here’s a dear little dachshund! 
Oh, please may I have him?” 

“Why, I don’t know, dear,” said his mother. 
“He is a nice looking dog, isn’t he? Are you 
sure you want him?” 

“Oh, yes, yes!” said Alfred. “Really, I do. 
Mother! He looks so much hke Fritzie, 
doesn’t he? Don’t you think he does?” 

Alfred put his hand into the cage to pat my 
head and I licked it and tried to reach his face 
with my tongue and whined and whined. And 
Alfred’s eyes got rounder and rounder, and 
suddenly he cried very loudly : 

“Oh, Mother, it is Fritzie! It is! It is! 
He knows me. Mother!” 

And — oh, well, I don’t remember much 
about what happened after that for a while! 
I know the man came and let me out of the 
cage and I jumped and barked and whined 
and went on terribly silly, I guess. But you 
didn’t mind, did you? And then, almost be- 
176 


BACK HOME AGAIN 

fore I knew it, I was snuggled up in — in 
Alfred’s arms in a carriage and we were rat- 
tling over the cobblestones at a great rate. 
And Alfred was crying and hugging me and 
his mother was smiling and crying a little too. 
I wasn’t, though ; not then ; I was far too happy 
to cry! 

And then — but you know the rest of my 
story as well as I do. How the Master came 
up to the City and took me home again and 
how glad I was to see Mother and Father and 
Frey a and every one else. And how William 
blew his nose over and over again and seemed 
to have a very bad cold in his head, and how 
the Baby said “Booful dogumsl” and hugged 
me until I had almost no breath left! But 
there was one thing I don’t think you ever 
knew about fully, and that was how the brindle 
bulldog came to be there. 

I had been home nearly an hour and was 
lying in the doorway talking to Mother and 
177 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


Father and Freya, telling them all about what 
had happened to me while I was away, when 
a brindled bulldog came trotting up the road. 
He was a very ugly looking dog and when I 
saw him I growled. But the others paid no 
attention to him. As he came nearer he re- 
minded me of some dog I had seen somewhere 
and so I asked who he was. 

“Oh,” said Mother, “that’s just Jim. He 
came here a month ago and wouldn’t let Wil- 
liam drive him away. So he lives here now. 
He’s a very nice dog. Rather coarse in his 
ways and not much to look at, but good- 
hearted and kind and a fine fellow to keep 
watch.” 

Then I remembered him. He was the dog 
who had belonged to the man who had stolen 
me. Of course I ran right out and said 
“Bow!” to him and we were very glad to see 
each other. He told me that after his master 
had gone away to take me to the City he got 
178 



Thle TivTs-af ^ 'tvMJ 


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1 


BACK HOME AGAIN 

to thinking about my home and how fine it 
would he to live in such a place and have regu- 
lar meals and be spoken to kindly now and 
then and he had made up his mind to run away 
and go there. You see, he thought that as the 
Family had lost me maybe they’d like a dog 
to take my place. That was quite clever of 
Jim, don’t you think? And so he left his 
home before his master came back and trotted 
down the lane and into the big road and so up 
to the stable. 

At first Father tried to drive him away and 
there was quite a rumpus, but Jim wouldn’t 
go. Then William tried to drive him away 
and got after him with the carriage whip. 
(Of course William didn’t hurt him any, be- 
cause he never would hurt a dog more than was 
good for him.) And still Jim wouldn’t go. 
So William felt sorry for him then and gave 
him some food and Jim slept outside the stable 
that night. When William found him there 
179 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


the next day he tried to drive him away again. 
But Jim came right back and so William fixed 
him up a box in the yard and ever since Jim 
had been one of the family. He told me that 
he was very happy and that he had never had 
so much to eat in all his life! The Master took 
a great fancy to Jim and Jim to the Master 
and they were fine friends. Of course the 
Family didn’t know that his name was Jim, 
because he never told them, and so they called 
him Tramp. 

It was awfully nice to be back home once 
more, I can tell you, and Mother and Father 
and Freya were so glad to see me that they 
just couldn’t do enough for me. Freya hung 
around so close that she got to be rather a 
bother! She nev^r got tired of hearing about 
the wonderful things that had happened to 
me, and about Mouser and Prince and, espe- 
cially, about Peaches, the dog who stood on his 
front legs. Even Ju-Ju seemed glad to have 
180 


BACK HOME AGAIN 

me back. I may be wrong about that, though. 
Cats are queer animals and you can’t tell much 
about what they’re thinking. 

But glad as I was to be back home I was a 
little sad all the time. I missed Alfred a lot. 
And when, a few weeks later, the Family got 
ready to go to the City for a visit and I learned 
that I was to go with them I was awfully 
pleased because I thought that I should see 
Alfred again. And I did, didn’t I? Do you 
remember when the Baby brought me in here 
that morning and said : 

‘‘Afed, here is Kismus present for oo, Mil- 
d’ed’s booful dogum!” 

You were almost as glad as I was, weren’t 
you? 

Well, there, that’s all my story. Next 
month we’re going back to see them all, aren’t 
we? I shall like that. I suppose Freya is 
fatter than ever now. She doesn’t hunt 
enough. I shall tell Mother so, too. 

181 


THE STORY MY DOGGIE TOLD TO ME 


Heigho! I think I’m getting sleepy. I 
have talked a great deal for a dog, and this pil- 
low is very comfy. If you will lean over I’d 
like to lick your face. Then I shall take a nap. 
But don’t forget to call me when you are ready 
to go to walk. There’s a squirrel in the Park 
— he lives in the fourth tree after you go 
through the big gate — and he made a face at 
me yesterday ... or was it the day before? 
Anyway, ... he ought ... to be taught 
. . . manners. . . . 


THE END OF THE TAIL 


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